For the ISU women’s track and field team, the indoor season has come and gone.

On Saturday, the season came to a close at the NCAA Qualifier held at Lied Recreation Athletic Center. The meet provided one final opportunity for Cyclone athletes and athletes from some of the nation’s top schools to qualify for the NCAA Indoor Championships next weekend.

However, with many of the top competitors not participating in the meet, none of the Cyclone women were able to qualify.

“For the women we weren’t really planning on getting anybody qualified,” said head coach Corey Ihmels.

Iowa State’s Lisa Koll, Grace Kemmey, Lashawn Wright and Jenna Caffrey all skipped out on the competition and have begun preparation for the outdoor season.

“We’re a young group and we’re just looking ahead,” Ihmels said. “This gives a chance to have two or three weeks to get ready and get going for outdoors.”

With so many of the top athletes sitting out, bright spots were hard to find for Ihmels and the rest of the coaching staff. One group with a particularly successful day was the group of throwers led by coach John Dagata.

“We’ve got a lot more to talk about after this weekend than we did last weekend,” Dagata said. “We left some points at the Big 12 Championships, but today we had some amazing performances.”

In the weight-throw competition, the Cyclones saw senior Amy Waggoner finish fifth, just ahead of freshman Laishema Hampton in sixth, although the shot put was where the most impressive performances came from.

Sophomore Britta Christofferson finished third, the two freshmen Hampton and Danielle Frere finished fifth and sixth, respectively, and Waggoner finished seventh.

“We had a decent day in the weight, but the women’s shot putters were amazing,” Dagata said. “I think all of the girls had a seasonal-best or a personal-best today. All of those girls just put it out there and said ‘Hey, we’re going to finish this indoor season.’”

Earlier in the week, Christofferson said the throwers had been practicing with a chip on their shoulder after a somewhat disappointing performance in the Big 12 Championships. The hard work paid off in a big way Saturday as the group had one of their best meets of the season.

“We had a mission and we had to get something out of today,” Dagata said about his group’s preparation for the meet. “I don’t know what they did, but it wasn’t me. They came out as a different group this week.”

Now the throwers and runners alike will get a few weeks away from competition as they begin preparation for the much longer outdoor season that begins March 27 and 28 with both the Stanford Invitational and the Raleigh Relays.

Ihmels said the weeks off will be tremendous for the team in terms of preparation, but also in terms of getting everyone healthy and getting the team back to full strength.

The sophomore Koll has missed the last four meets with a lingering back injury, and the junior Wright has been battling back from an undisclosed injury that kept her out of the ISU Classic.

“Obviously, we’ve got to get a lot of kids healthy,” Ihmels said. “The good thing about this is indoor season is over for the women, and we’ve got a good amount of time to get healthy and ready for outdoors.”

The fact that not one of the Cyclone women will be competing at College Station, Texas for the NCAA Indoor Championships might seem to be a disappointment from someone on the outside of the program. However, the coaching staff does not feel this way, and is encouraged by the performances they saw this weekend.

“No, it’s not a disappointment,” Dagata said. “I’m not disappointed at all because you’ve got to crawl before you walk, and when I got here a year and a half ago we had to learn how to crawl.”