As the ISU softball team plays in a preseason tournament this weekend, catcher Alex Johnson has identified an important growth factor in the young season.

“The team’s communication this season is better on and off the field, and we hope to utilize this,” Johnson said.

The upperclassmen have found that helping introduce the nine freshmen into the program has bonded the group as a whole.

“We are close and depend on each other,” said second baseman Amanda Bradberry.

Bradberry feels the attitude of the team is embodied in a quote from former U.S. women’s soccer player Mia Hamm.

“I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team,” Hamm had said. “I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.”

All the players understand how essential playing together is in a team sport, Bradberry said.

While running plays in practice, a player or two may be having difficulty getting it down, and the rest of the team continues to run through the play for them encouraging them along the way, players said.

Players also believe their teamwork on the field is directly correlated to their relationship off the field, which includes team meals with recruits and going out to dinner for players’ birthdays.

The players say they feel more like a team than they have in the past. With success and confidence from previous seasons, they feel like they are growing as a program.

The ISU softball team will take on Drake, UNI and Iowa in this weekend’s Big Four Tournament.

After last Saturday’s game against Northern Iowa Area Community College was canceled because of rain, “the team is excited to get on the field,” Johnson said. The fall exhibition games provide a chance for the Cyclones to see the changes each team has made. It also allows for most of the team to get some playing time.

On Saturday the Cyclones will battle with the Drake Bulldogs. Drake’s pitching proved tough to hit last March with Brynne Dordel taking a shutout against Iowa State.

The Cyclones will play Iowa first at 1 p.m. Sunday. Bradberry recalls the matches with Iowa as “close games with solo homeruns or big hits to win the game.”

The Cy-Hawk battle in every sport is exciting, Bradberry said. “You never truly know who will win.”

In the final game of the Big Four Tournament, the Cyclones will play Northern Iowa at 3 p.m. In the 2007 Big Four Tournament Iowa State beat Northern Iowa first 5-0 and then again 10-2.