IOWA CITY – It wasn’t the right way to start a game. It’s a good thing a pair of Cyclone seniors knew how to finish it.

The Cyclones (4-1) tripped out of the gate, falling behind the Iowa Hawkeyes (6-2) after they scored 11 straight unanswered points to begin the game. Iowa State, however, pulled even after halftime, and closed the game strong to defeat Iowa 80-74.

“It was ugly the first four minutes and we couldn’t find anything that was working,” said coach Bill Fennelly. “Luckily it was 11-0 in the first 4 minutes rather than the 11 points down in the second half.”

After the nightmarish start, it was seniors Lyndsey Medders and Megan Ronhovde that the Cyclones turned to for guidance.

“Seniors don’t panic, seniors understand the magnitude of the moment and seniors don’t get down when things go bad,” Fennelly said.

“I don’t think there is any question that at the end of the day it was the seniors on our team that really decided the outcome of this game.”

Medders struggled in the first half scoring just four points. While she struggled, Ronhovde was busy keeping the game from getting out of hand with 13 first-half points.

“I think Megan somehow has a sense of when we need her a little bit more, and tonight was one of those nights,” Fennelly said. “She hit some really big ones when we had to have it, especially in the first half.”

Medders had been striving too hard in the first half, but Fennelly sat Medders to give her a chance to regroup. The move paid off.

A fresh Medders picked up the pace in the second half, scoring 17 second-half points to contribute to her 21 total points to help the Cyclones to the win.

“When I basically do what coach tells me, I succeed,” Medders said. “When I stray off the golden path as I call it, it doesn’t work out so well. It took me about 24 minutes to figure that out, and when I did I felt a lot better.”

Despite pulling off the win, the Cyclones know they can’t let teams in the future get big leads early in the game.

“Seems like every game we’ve played we’ve been down 10,” Medders said. “We can’t dig deep holes in the Big 12 and expect to be successful.”

After a four-game road trip that saw Iowa State go 3-1, the Cyclones return home for seven straight games at Hilton Coliseum, starting with UW-Milwaukee (3-5) at 2 p.m. Saturday

Although the Cyclones’ attention is on the game against UW-Milwaukee, that won’t stop them from feeling a little pride for beating the rival Hawkeyes.

“We’ve talked about it a lot at home together, and we have signs posted on the refrigerator,” Medders said. “We know the significance of it.”

What did the signs say to motivate the players?

“If you want to see them that bad, you can get them out of the trash can tomorrow morning,” Medders said with a laugh.

Iowa State closed the gap in the Hy-Vee Cy-Hawk series to just one point, with Iowa leading 5-4.