Coming off a season-best performance in a sweep against Nebraska, the Cyclones look to close out their season on a high note against the Hawkeyes this weekend.

Iowa State is only two victories away from taking the conference outright and advancing to the regional tournament, which will start next Friday.

If the Cyclones are able to achieve this, they will be the first team in Cyclone baseball history to reach the regional tournament, something that both the players and coach feel would be a big step for the program.

“Getting that done would be huge for us, considering all the new guys we have this year,” sophomore Shawn Beenken said. “We really just clicked as a team right from the beginning, and we are sitting at the top of the conference right now with the chance to do something big here.”

Senior player-coach Andrew Schmid is anxious for his team to get to the regional, but he knows players can’t get ahead of themselves.

“We have to take it one game at a time,” Schmid said. “We need to win these two games to get to regionals.”

The team is confident in their chances against the Hawkeyes, whom they have had success against in recent seasons.

“We’ve seen the best pitching and best hitting we’re going to see already this season.” Schmid said. “We just have to make sure that we don’t have a weekend like we had against South Dakota ,where we showed we are capable of beating ourselves.”

Iowa dropped its series to the Huskers, but was able to split with South Dakota, something the Cyclones weren’t able to do.

After last weekend’s series against Minnesota got cancelled, Iowa State, if nothing else, will be well-rested going into this weekend’s series.

“We need to make sure we show total effort and not mess around,” Schmid said. “We’re a confident bunch of kids right now, though, coming off the Nebraska series — [we’re] definitely starting to feel the groove right now.”

Beenken agrees that wrapping up the series this weekend will add some “juice” to the team’s swagger.

Schmid and a few other seniors, including third-base coach Grant Thomas and assistant player-coach Jim Smaga, will be finishing out their Cyclone baseball careers this weekend.

Despite it being his last series, Schmid will not approach it any differently than any other series.

As if the Cyclones need any more motivation to finish the season strong, they are going against their archrival.

“We’re excited for this weekend,” Beenken said. “It’s always good to beat the Hawkeyes.”