The ISU softball team snapped Nebraska’s streak of 139 games without losing by run rule and has now won back-to-back Big 12 games for the first time this season.

With winds of 30 to 45 mph straight out to left field, the Cyclones followed up Saturday’s 4-1 win over Oklahoma State with a 13-4 victory over the Cornhuskers at the Southwest Athletic Complex on Tuesday. The wind may have been an advantage for the Cyclones, who were coming off another windy game against Oklahoma State.

“We played Sunday in wind just about like this,” said co-head coach Gary Hines.

Hines said, “In the Big 12, if you are going to play in the spring, you’re going to play in some wind, and they have done a really good job handling it and talking … The biggest thing is communication and I thought they did really well with that in the field.”

Nebraska had problems fielding the ball. While the Cornhuskers only committed one error, they misplayed several fly balls seemingly due to the wind, particularly in the sixth inning.

Iowa State broke the game open in the sixth inning, taking a 4-2 deficit and turning it into a 13-4 lead without recording a single out. The first 11 Cyclone hitters of the inning all scored, the last of which came from a three-run walk-off home run by senior third baseman Ariel Coburn, her second home run of the game.

“Its just like a rally,” said sophomore designated player Alex Johnson. “I mean, one person gets on, and that gets the next batter pumped up and the next batter pumped up … if she can do it, I can do it. We are a team.”

The rally turned into a blowout when Johnson came up to bat with the bases loaded in the sixth with the Cyclones trailing 4-3.

“I have hit two grand slams before, so everybody was like, ‘Oh, A.J. has hit a grand slam before,'” Johnson said. “So that sort of went through my mind, and I just have to block that out. I’m like, ‘I just want a base hit, I just want to hit the ball in the gap.’ I called time twice, I think, because I needed to get focused.

Although the Cyclones ruled the sixth inning, the game remained close through the first five innings.

Both teams struggled to hit the other team’s pitching early on.

“The first pitcher [Alex Hupp] took a really long time delivering the softball, and it kind of had us sitting there waiting for her to make a pitch instead of attacking the ball, so it went bask and forth,” Hines said. “I thought Rachel [Zabriskie] did a really good job in the first four innings throwing the ball.”

In the fourth inning, however, both teams began to score and the game went back and forth. Nebraska struck first, stringing together a couple of hits to take a 1-0 lead. The Cyclones answered back in the bottom of the inning with a two-run homer by Coburn. Nebraska took the lead right back with a two-run home run of their own in the top of the fifth.

It all went to set up the Cyclones’ big sixth inning, giving Johnson, with maybe a little help from the wind, her chance.

“The grand slam wasn’t in my mind. I was just looking for a little poke and was hoping that the wind was going to help me like it did the other batters, but it just happened,” Johnson said. “That’s what happens when you pitch it down the middle.”