Saturday, the Cyclone offense accomplished something it had not done for the past 17 years – score more than 12 runs to beat a Big 12 opponent.

In the first game of the doubleheader against No. 15 Texas A&M (30-12, 9-3), the Cyclones (18-20, 2-6) hardly resembled the team that had trouble scoring against Big 12 opponents, with a 14-6 win. Those 14 runs were the most Iowa State had scored against any previous Big 12 opponent. The Cyclones had only scored 12 runs in their previous six conference games.

“I was pretty frustrated after our game against UNI, and I don’t think we competed well,” said ISU coach Stacy Gemeinhardt. “They just played better. They came out and competed well. Games that we’ve had where we lose – we shouldn’t do that. And as a coach, that’s frustrating. You come out after one of those games and you do this – or you lose to UNI – it’s a learning process throughout the whole season.”

One of those keys the Cyclones learned was demonstrated early on after trailing 1-0. The team acted quickly to steal back the momentum.

In the top of the third inning, Alyssa Ransom and Ashley Killeen teamed up to catch Texas A&M’s Sharonda McDonald stealing second base. McDonald is one of the leading base stealing threats in the conference. In the Cyclones half of the inning, Cary Akins collected her 100th career hit and Killeen, who recently claimed her 100th career hit against Northern Iowa, hit a line-drive home run to left-center field to put the Cyclones ahead, 3-1. But for the next three innings, both teams would score in a wild game with a combined 24 hits and 20 runs.

Ransom was cruising in the top of the fifth with a 5-2 lead when she could not find the strike zone and walked with the bases loaded.

“A mental lapse is really what happened,” Ransom said. “They’re a good offensive team. I know they’re a good offensive team, and I probably started to think about how good an offensive team they are.”

Texas A&M’s Beverly Rowan then came up to the plate.

On a 3-0 count, she hit a towering home run to left field, a grand slam that gave Texas A&M the lead, 6-5.

Texas A&M then tried to capitalize on the newly gained momentum, changing pitchers in the bottom of the fifth inning, but the Cyclones received a little help when the Aggies infield committed two errors in the inning and allowed the Cyclones to regain the lead, 8-5.

Ransom came into the sixth inning and regained her early-game control, inducing two quick outs and then striking out the last batter she faced – a rare inning in which either team was retired in order.

The ISU offense scored six more runs in the bottom of the sixth inning envoking the eight-run mercy rule at 14-6.

“When something like that happens, you have to identify it,” Ransom said. “Coach Hines pointed out to me after that inning that I don’t need to be doing that, and so it helped me fix it for the next inning.”

Ransom picked up her eighth win of the season, scattering 11 hits and three strikeouts.

She is now fifth all-time in Cyclone history with 29 career wins.

Kristy Olsen led the team with three runs scored in the first game, going 3-for-4.

“I saw the ball really well, and I had to get down there because it’s my job,” Olsen said.

In the second game, however, with the threat of rain disappearing and the winds gusting to near 25 mph, Texas A&M’s Amanda Scarborough put on quite a show.

Scarborough pitched a complete game four-hit shutout and aided her own cause by going 3-for-3 at the plate, with two doubles and a three-run home run as Texas A&M took the second game of the doubleheader, 7-0. Amie Ford pitched six innings, but had six walks, which was costly for the Cyclones.

“We’ve showed today that we can do a lot of great things,” Gemeinhardt said. “We just need to figure out how to get that every time.”

With the doubleheader split, the Cyclones equaled last season’s win total with 18, when it was coached by Ruth Crowe.