The Cyclones will see some familiar faces this weekend at the Razorback Invitational.

Iowa State (7–9) will head to Fayetteville, Ark., where it will face Eastern Illinois (5–3) and Southern Mississippi (11–2) on Friday. Then the Cyclones will face three straight previous opponents in Drake (6–3), Arkansas (8–3) and No. 20 Louisiana-Lafayette (10–5).

“They have seen us and we have seen them, so we will be ready for each other,” senior outfielder Kelsey Kidwell said. “It should be a good tournament.”

In their previous encounters, the Cyclones are 1–2 against those three teams, with a three-run win over Drake, a two-run loss to Arkansas and a one-run loss in overtime against Louisiana-Lafayette. Although it is under .500 in those games, Iowa State is confident it can have success.

“I think they feel comfortable with the idea that they can beat Lafayette and Arkansas,” said coach Stacy Gemeinhardt-Cesler. “At the same time, we always know that Drake’s going to be a good game.”

The Cyclones are particularly excited for their rematch against host Arkansas.

“Arkansas beat us at the Minnesota tournament, so we will be gunning for them, especially since coach Pink [Jamie Pinkerton] was there last year,” Kidwell said. “It makes for a fun rivalry out of the weekend.”

Pinkerton was coach at Arkansas for the past five seasons, leading his teams to the regional tournament the past two years. Arkansas and Pinkerton parted ways on good terms at the end of last year as Pinkerton wanted to move to the Midwest to be closer to his wife’s family, which live in Minnesota.

Iowa State is also excited for its rematch against Louisiana-Lafayette. The last time they met, the Cyclones rallied from a 4–0 deficit in the sixth inning to tie the game before losing in extra innings.

“We need to come out stronger hitting,” Kidwell said. “We can’t keep the game so close. We just need to get ahead and stay ahead.”

Although the team is looking forward to this tournament, it is coming off its worst weekend of the season, going 1–4 at the Georgia Tournament.

“We will definitely use that as motivation, because nobody likes to walk away from a tournament 1–4,” Kidwell said. “Obviously we need to do a lot better than we did last weekend and come out a lot stronger.”

Although disappointed with last week’s results, the Cyclones feel they learned from the experience and they do not expect to have a repeat performance.

“Our approach to practice this week was a little bit different,” Kidwell said. “Last week, looking back, it looks like we were going through the motions. So our approach this week was to focus on every pitch, every practice, every minute.”