Freshman Rachel Zabriskie was her usual dominant self for six innings before faltering down the stretch in a 3-1 loss to rival Iowa last night.

She stayed ahead of hitters all night, ringing up first-pitch strikes against 15 of the batters she faced.

“It’s really important to get ahead – even at the major league level, it’s key,” co-head coach Gary Hines said. “We really work hard at making a quality first pitch, and that gives us options later on in the at-bat. Rachel did that tonight, but we weren’t able to come away with a win.”

Zabriskie (11-6) held Iowa scoreless until the fifth inning, when Erin Riemersma hit a game-tying solo home run. Iowa tacked on two more runs with another solo homer and a run-scoring double in the top of the seventh.

Zabriskie gave up five hits and three earned runs, striking out four in 6.1 innings of work. She kept hitters guessing all night, doing her best work against the heart of the Iowa lineup.

Leadoff hitter Chelsey Carmody and No. 3 hitter Colleen McGlaughlin, who entered the game hitting .364 and .356 respectively, went hitless in a combined seven at-bats. The top five hitters in the Iowa lineup combined to go 1-15 with two strikeouts and a walk, the lone hit being a home run off the bat of Katie Brown, who was hitting only .236 heading into the contest.

Despite faltering late in the game, Hines thought Zabriskie did a good job of giving her team a chance to win until the final inning.

“She did an excellent job of keeping us in it, but as it got late in the ball game, they had her pitches timed,” he said. “When she made a couple of mistakes, they hit them hard. When the offense isn’t scoring many runs, you start thinking about making perfect pitches, and that leads to a mistake here and there.”

Zabriskie agreed with her coach.

“We’ve always worked on first-pitch strikes and getting ahead early in the count – it leads to quick outs,” she said. “I made a couple of mistakes, but fortunately the defense played very well behind me.”

Zabriskie was locked in a pitching duel with Iowa pitchers Brittany Weil and Amanda Zust through six innings. Zust came on in the top of the fourth inning and shut down the ISU offense for the rest of the game, striking out seven and only slipping her grip to allow a single to sophomore Sydni Jones.

“[Zust] kept the ball down, and threw pretty hard,” Hines said. “We acted like we weren’t seeing the ball that well. It looked to me that, early, that we helped her out by swinging at some pitches out of the strike zone.”

The Cyclone offense was held to fewer than two runs for the third consecutive game. Jones led the Cyclones with two hits, including an RBI double in the second inning that gave Iowa State the lead.

Although the offense has struggled recently, Hines believes that the elite pitching the Cyclones have faced recently against Texas and Iowa will provide them with momentum as they enter the home stretch of the season.

“The pitchers we faced tonight, the ones we faced from Texas and the ones we will see from Texas A&M are the best you’ll see just about anywhere,” he said. “Once we get through this part of the schedule, it’ll help us down the road when we face teams that don’t have this kind of pitching.”