The winless Cyclones learned some very important lessons after playing the Iowa Hawkeyes twice in one week, team members say.

The Cyclones learned some things about their mental state and some things to work on in different events.

“If we get a little mentally tougher, then we’re definitely going to be beating a lot of teams,” said Coach Jay Ronayne.

Iowa State went from bars to vault to floor to beam. And floor was definitely the weakest event Monday.

“For the most part everybody was a little bit more timid on floor this time than usual and I don’t feel like they were going for their passes as aggressive as they have been. I think our confidence level was just a little bit lower,” said junior Jody McKellar.

A few Cyclones truly found themselves on the floor during their passes.

“Melanie touched down on her double back. I went out of bounds and fell on my two and a half punch front, and there were a lot of step backs, like multiple steps on double pikes,” McKellar said.

Ronayne knew some of the Cyclones needed a bit more practice on their floor routines before competition but put them out there anyway.

“The first four competitors we knew might have a problem, they haven’t had the amount of training they need in the gym. It was kind of a put them up and see what we can get and hope we get lucky,” Ronayne said.

On beam, even with a minor setback, the Cyclones came out with good scores.

“This week we really worked hard trying to stay positive no matter what the previous event was. We did that with beam [Monday]. I pulled the girls together before we went and I told them let’s just get back and lets be united. We had a fall but even with that fall we had a really good score,” said senior Jasmine Thompson.

Iowa State knew it had to slow down a little bit on beam after last Thursday’s three falls.

“I know individually I had to work on controlling my mind. I think last week I got ahead of myself and I was on the next skill while I was doing the skill that I was on. So that went better [Monday] and the result was a success,” Thompson said.

The team tried to make a point to keep a good attitude going into the meet Monday and it worked for the first half of the meet. The Cyclones two positives of the night were on vault and bars.

As for bars, the Cyclones tried to once again do it like they always do in practice. They kept focused and had high confidence.

“I think bars went really well, I think everybody looked a lot like we’ve been looking in practice. I feel like there are still a few things we can fix up but for the most part everyone was more aggressive with hand stands and with their routines in general,” McKellar said.

As for vault, the Cyclones feel they have continued to improve.

“Vault for us is getting stronger. As a whole we’re getting into a set line-up and we kind of know where everyone is. It’s been better in practice and we’ve been working on landings and I think it’s paying off,” Thompson said.