They may play on it almost all season long, but the Cyclones’ first game on dirt in months may bring with it some rust.

Iowa State goes to Texas this weekend for the Marriott Houston Invitational, where the team will face mostly southern teams that have been playing outside all year.

“The balls are going to bounce differently, pitching is different, hitting will be different, running in the dirt is different,” said junior pitcher Rachel Zabriskie. “You just can’t think about it too much.”

The different surface will likely cause the most problems on defense.

“We will probably struggle in the first couple tournaments with errors in the infield, but hopefully we will get over those pretty fast,” said senior third baseman Courtney Wray.

Although the southern teams will have a bit of an advantage, the Cyclones think they can overcome it if they stay focused.

“We talked about taking extra ground balls in warm-ups, and just staying low and charging the ball,” Wray said. “We just have to play aggressively and not second guess any balls that come to us.”

Iowa State will also focus on fixing a few things from last weekend’s tournament.

“We need to stay focused for all the games, not just one game and then switching back and forth like we did last tournament,” Zabriskie said.

The Cyclones also say they want to work on getting more timely hits with runners in scoring position. But the biggest challenge of the tournament will be the competition. The Cyclones will face three teams that qualified for the regional tournament last season, including 18th-ranked Louisiana-Lafayette and 15th-ranked Texas.

“That is kind of the way that our whole schedule is set up, with good teams,” said head coach Stacy Gemeinhardt-Cesler.

But that is the kind of competition the team likes.

“Playing better people excites me, because your team always plays better when you are playing better people,” Zabriskie said.

The Cyclones are particularly excited to play against fellow Big 12 conference member Texas. Iowa State rarely plays Big 12 teams outside the conference season, but they are looking forward to the unique situation.

“It gives the younger players an idea of the type of team we will play in our conference,” Gemeinhardt-Cesler said. “Even though we are playing a lot of high quality teams outside of our conference, it shows them how ready they have to be.”

With most of the team coming back from last year, they feel they are ready for Texas. Last season the Cyclones lost a heartbreaking eight-inning game 4-2 against the Longhorns, and they want to turn that around.

“I think it will surprise a lot of people,” Wray said.“They are not going to beat us in Big 12 play either.”