Last weekend at the Big 12 Conference Indoor Championships, the ISU women’s track and field team didn’t have much to cheer about en route to their 11th-place finish. However, the fact that the Cyclone’s top finisher in eight of 14 events was either a sophomore or a freshman means that things are headed in the right direction.

Of the 17 points scored by Iowa State, 12 of them were scored by underclassmen. The Cyclones only saw two events that a senior was the best among them, the 3,000 and 5,000-meter runs.

“We’re young, and that’s just where we’re at [as a program], but I thought we made progress,” head coach Corey Ihmels said.

That progress may be hard to see from someone on the outside looking in, but all of the athletes and coaches are encouraged by what they have seen from the young athletes of the program.

“The direction we’re going is amazing,” said senior Amy Waggoner. “Seeing what the freshmen did this weekend…it’s great things they’re going to be able to do in the future building on this experience they got.”

Waggoner is the only senior in the group of throwers that fielded three top tens in their two events. Freshman Danielle Frere finished ninth in the shot put competition and freshman Laishema Hampton finished seventh in the weight throw, just .69 meters ahead of Waggoner’s tenth-place performance.

“The younger throwers have come a long way from where we started,” throws coach John Dagata said. “Their motivation and certainty to get things right is very good. Their experience is not very good. We lost out on points because we didn’t know how to be at the Big 12s.”

The throwing events were by far the deepest for the Cyclones this weekend, as five throwers finished in the top fifteen in their respective events. Along with Waggoner, Frere, and Hampton, sophomore Britta Cristofferson finished 14th in the shot put, missing out on the top ten by just .34 meters.

“I’m really looking forward to what we have in the future, it’s a great future for the throws program right now,” Cristofferson said.

Iowa State also had success in the other event areas. Freshman Kianna Elahi ran one of her best races this season and finished in fourth in the 600-yard run while sophomore Jenna Caffrey and freshman Jordon Andreassen finished fifth and eighth, respectively, in the pentathlon competition.

“It was really interesting to run against people at that level and to see how far I could push myself against those people,” Elahi said. “A meet is a meet, though, and when it comes down to it you just have to run your race no matter where you are.”

Again, though, it was an important experience as only Caffrey had competed in a Big 12 Championship. This was Caffrey’s first Championship experience in the pentathlon, and only the second time either athlete had competed in the multi-event competition.

Caffrey was one of three sophomores to finish in the top five in the pentathlon, but Andreassen was the highest finishing freshmen, beating out the next highest rookie by 100 points. The Cyclone duo was one of three sets of teammates to score points in the events, combining for five of the Cyclones’ 17.

“They’re going to keep getting better, and they have the ability to get the team off on the right foot,” Ihmels said. “Obviously, that’s really important.”

The concentration of young athletes at the top of event areas encourages coaches, and they say it promises more success going into the outdoor conference season and beyond.

“We’re not done, we have a lot of goals still to accomplish,” Dagata said. “We’re excited about what we did, but that’s done. We’ve got to move on.”

Ihmels also raved about the success of his young throwers as well as commending his coaching staff on the tremendous job they have done with such a young team. He and Dagata both emphasized how important competing against the Big 12 was for the young athletes, commenting several times that its one of the best conferences in the nation.

“The biggest thing [for the freshmen] is to focus every time,” Waggoner said. “We have to know who our competitors are, what they’ve thrown, and what we have to do to compete with them.”