The Cyclones’ offense played as well against Oklahoma as anybody has this season.

On Sunday, Iowa State was just the eleventh team to outhit the Sooners, 8-7.

Unfortunately for the Cyclones, they couldn’t turn the hits into runs and lost 9-1.

Contributing to the Cyclones’ problems is that none of their six runners in scoring position made it home – their only run came off a solo homer by sophomore catcher Alex Johnson in the second inning.

Sophomore second baseman Amanda Bradberry feels this was mainly due to poor luck.

“We are hitting the ball [with runners in scoring position] – it’s just going right at people right now,” Bradberry said.

Another reason the Cyclones were kept off the board was that the hits they got didn’t come from the right people at the right time.

“We just didn’t put anything together early [in innings] when we had zero outs,” co-head coach Crystal Turner said. “We didn’t get timely hits – we didn’t get anything going through the gap.”

Of Iowa State’s eight hits, only one of them came with no outs, three came with one out and four, including Johnson’s home run, came with two outs.

“We were hitting the ball, just not when we needed to,” co-head coach Gary Hines said.

Although not scoring runs discouraged for the team, Hines was quick to point out that they did see some positives on offense.

“We hit this team better than a lot of people, so we can’t let these two games persuade us that we are not attacking at the plate,” Hines said.

Turner is most proud of the adjustment her team showed. After getting just two hits in the first four innings, the Cyclones got 10 in the remaining 10 innings of the series through the games against Oklahoma through Saturday and Sunday.

“I think they did a good job of adjusting,” Turner said. “Their pitch selection was much better than the first five innings of the first game yesterday. As far as the runners being left on, we are doing a better job hitting the ball in play and runners on. Now we just need to bring them in.”

In order for them to get runners in, Bradberry feels they need to keep fighting on through this stretch.

“We need to get bunts down and just keep swinging,” Bradberry said. “Right now, we just need to keep swinging and it will happen – they will fall.”