Only one game into the season, Iowa State’s freshmen class has already made an impact.

The Cyclones’ four freshmen — Whitney Williams, Alexis Yackley, Ashley Arlen and Claire Rockall combined to score 26 of the team’s 77 points in Sunday’s season-opening rout of Missouri-Kansas City.

Building off her performance in the exhibition season, Arlen continued to be the standout among the freshmen, barely missing a double-double with a team-high 12 points and nine rebounds.

“She’s playing as good as anyone on our team,” coach Bill Fennelly said. “Certainly, she is someone who gives us another option in the post that we didn’t have.”

Not to be outdone, Williams sank two shots from the three-point line on her way to an eight-point, three-rebound performance. Yackley added six points.

Despite the early success, Fennelly said the freshmen are still trying to adapt to the high tempo of the college game.

“Sometimes things are going at a pace that things are a blur for them. They’ve got to be able to process it and learn,” Fennelly said.

Several times the team succumbed to mental errors, such as turning the ball over or failing to complete an inbound pass. The freshmen turned the ball over a combined seven times, a slight improvement over the 10 turnovers they amassed last week, against Missouri-Western.

First-game nerves may be partly to blame for some of the quartet’s mistakes.

“Up to the point of the game, before getting in, I was very nervous. First-game jitters, I guess,” Arlen said. “The first two exhibition games weren’t really much like this.”

Fennelly stressed it will be a continual learning process for the freshmen, as the season progresses.

“They have to be able to come into a game, play four to five minutes, take care of the ball, defend, make a free-throw and help us win,” Fennelly said. “They have to accept that. They have to understand that.”

Cyclones crash the boards

With no one on the Kangaroo roster listed above 6-feet, the Cyclones capitalized on the height differential by bringing down 59 rebounds, 18 more than the team’s total against Missouri Western.

“The thing I liked about it was who got the rebounds,” Fennelly said. “Our guards were getting a lot of the rebounds, and that’s the way we want to play.”

Throughout the game, Iowa State tried to force the Kangaroos to take shots from the perimeter. It resulted in the missed shots to bounce farther from the basket, allowing the guards to make a play for the rebound.

The Cyclone guards were responsible for 27 rebounds, almost half of the team’s total. Alison Lacey and Denae Stuckey led the way for the guards, picking up seven and six rebounds respectively.

“We had a tremendous height advantage, but a lot of the people who got the rebounds weren’t the tall ones,” Fennelly said. “It’s an effort thing. It’s a position thing.”

13 Cyclones clock minutes

Iowa State sent out 13 players during Sunday’s game, mainly a result of the large lead the Cyclones were able to create.

Fennelly said he does not expect the high number of subs to be a regular occurrence.

“It’s harder to play that many players, because what happens is to play other people some of your better players, like Alison [Lacey], have to go to the bench and that’s not going to happen,” Fennelly said.

As the battle for playing time continues throughout the season, expect the number of players who enter the game to change on a daily basis, Fennelly said.

“It’s not going to be the same rotation every game,” Fennelly said. “We haven’t gotten to that point and I don’t think we will. There are only so many minutes and they all want to play.”