Iowa State is down, but not out – yet.

The ISU softball team will try to break out of a four-game losing streak this weekend when it travels to Lubbock, Texas, on Saturday and Sunday to take on the Texas Tech Lady Raiders.

The Cyclones have struggled to score runs during the streak, losing by a combined 32-5.

“We have fallen behind in early innings – we are not hitting the ball consistently, we aren’t getting big base hits with runners on even when we have them – you don’t win ballgames that way,” said co-head coach Gary Hines. “We have to find somebody who can shut the door for one inning and keep us in a ball game and make a big pitch with people on base.”

Second baseman Courtney Wray feels the team’s struggles have just snowballed, becoming worse and worse.

“We have been getting more and more frustrated, and the more frustrated we get, the less tune-up that we have,” Wray said.

In order to fix Iowa State’s problems, Hines says the team will have to get down to business in practice.

“We have to do some work with the pitchers and try to find some consistency,” Hines said. “We worked [Tuesday] on situation hitting, getting runners moved and trying to do something with the runners on third or second. We will just have to continue that in practice and then see if we can’t make some better adjustments to pitchers in ballgames.”

Wray agrees that the Cyclones have a lot of work to do in order to improve, but she thinks the players need to get out of their own heads, too.

“We need to play like we know how to play and have fun in the game,” Wray said. “Not getting down. Usually, when we have fun and enjoy ourselves when we are playing, that’s when we get the most hits and score the most runs.”

The Cyclones (26-23, 3-10 Big 12) will try to get back on the right track against a Lady Raiders (18-33, 5-9 Big 12) squad that has been having a less-than-stellar season itself.

Texas Tech struggled on both offense and defense this season. They are last in the Big 12 in two fundamental offensive categories: batting average, hitting just .246, and ERA, a dismal 3.49, as of April 22.

“I know they are beatable – hopefully we can put a string of hits together in that game and score a couple more runs then we have been scoring,” Wray said.

Hines, however, thinks those numbers are skewed due to Texas Tech’s difficult non-conference schedule, pointing out that the Lady Raiders have a better conference record than the Cyclones do.

“It is going to take our best effort from here on out, and we have to find a way to get it as coaches and as players,” Hines said.