After a week of struggles on the road, the Cyclones come home to regroup in their home opener.

Iowa State will play in-state rival Northern Iowa at the Southwest Athletic Complex on Wednesday at 4 p.m., after 32 straight road games to begin the season.

“We are super excited to be home,” said head coach Stacy Gemeinhardt-Cesler. “We have been on a lot of road games. Just being able to sleep in your own bed, and getting up and going to class and then after class getting out and being able to play, I just know that everyone is really excited.”

That excitement will be added to by the fact the opponent will be the Panthers. The Cyclones split a two-game series with their in-state rivals last season and have won three of the last six games against them.

“I think that it’s a great opportunity that we have with four division I schools in the state, and I think that any time we play any of the other state schools, we want to win,” Gemeinhardt-Cesler said. “We want to be the best school in the state.”

Although the rivalry is almost second nature to many native Iowans, some of the players from out of state receive a bit of a shock when they play an Iowan team for the first time.

“I don’t know if the crowd is so intense, but somebody is more intense just to win the game because it is like facing your own competition. I don’t know if I feel it as much because I’m not from Iowa,” said sophomore pitcher Rachel Zabriskie. “The first time we played Iowa it was really intense and I didn’t really understand it yet.”

The younger players on the team will need to get used to it quickly however, because this year’s Northern Iowa team has played well to start off the season. Northern Iowa comes into the game with a 19-8 overall record, including two wins against Kansas. The Panthers also played Big 12 powers Nebraska and No. 13 Missouri tough, dropping both games 2-1.

“I think that they fight hard, I think that they are kind of scrappy, but in a good way,” Gemeinhardt-Cesler said.

The Cyclones got a reminder of that when the two teams met in the Big Four tournament, which pits all of the division I schools in Iowa against eachother, during the fall season. The Cyclones received a scare from the Panthers in an 14-8 shootout in Des Moines.

“I remember that they are pretty good,” Zabriskie said. “They were better then I though they were going to be.”

Backstop Bandits

This season the team is expecting a rise in fan support, if not in numbers, at least in noise.

The Farmhouse fraternity has ‘adopted’ the softball team and is planning to start a section called the Backstop Bandits for Iowa State’s home games this year. Having a vocal cheering section will be a change of pace for the upperclassmen on the team.

“I’m excited because I’m not used to a bunch of fans,” Zabriskie said.