When the NCAA Indoor Championships get underway this weekend, there won’t be any Cyclone women there participating.

The only Cyclone woman with a qualifying time this season – junior Lisa Koll – had to withdraw her name from the field due to an injury that has had her sidelined since January.

“Obviously we’re a little disappointed we don’t have anybody going,” head coach Corey Ihmels said.  “We do have a lot of people that ran on the cusp of getting there, though.”

This is the second Iowa State indoor season under Ihmels, but this is the first time that no Cyclone women will be attending the indoor championships.  Last season, Koll ran and finished second in the 5,000-meter run.

In the time under Ihmels the Cyclones have taken on a new identity as a  young team with a  promising future.  The bulk of the Cyclone’s top finishers at last month’s Big 12 Championships were either freshman or sophomores, and although none qualified for nationals this year, Ihmels is encouraged.

“I think in another year Jordon [Andreassen] and Jenna [Caffrey] are going to be in that meet,” Ihmels said. “Danielle Frere and Laishema Hampton are two young ladies who I think will be at that meet, as well.”

“All of those kids are either freshmen or sophomores and it’s just going to take some time to develop them.”

The freshman Andreassen and the sophomore Caffrey finished eighth and fifth, respectively, in the pentathlon competition at the Big 12 Championships in just their second time competing in the multi-event competition.  Meanwhile, the freshman tandem of Frere and Hampton each had a top-ten finish in their respective throwing events at the Conference Championships and are on the brink of breaking through to the nation’s elite.

“That’s the goal — to get those girls to a point where they can succeed,” said assistant coach John Dagata. Dagata came on with Ihmels two seasons ago and has slowly begun to turn around his group of throwers, but has yet to see any real results in terms of national championship berths. “I think the progress is not really noticed in terms of points, but they are improving,” Dagata said.

Now that the indoor season has come to a close, the Iowa State women will turn their attention to preparation for the grueling outdoor season that begins almost immediately after spring break.  With just three weeks to prepare, the coaching staff has all of their athletes back to work.

“We’re back in the preparation phases of figuring what’s wrong and fixing it,” Dagata said.  “We finished an indoor season, and now it’s on to learning how to prepare for an outdoor season.  What can we do better, what can we do smarter, how can we train harder?”

In the future, with the return of Koll and the other young athletes that succeeded this year, the Cyclones are in a position to take several athletes to the championship meet next season in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

“I think we’re moving in the right direction, and it’s just going to take some time to get to the point where we have four or five athletes going to nationals every year,” Ihmels said.

“Obviously this isn’t where we want to be, but when we took over we knew this wasn’t a one or two year project.  I think you’ve just take a couple of steps forward and a few steps back.”