The last time Iowa State faced Drake, it attempted to rebound from a rough 9-1 loss to Big 12 opponent Oklahoma State, but failed with a 3-2 loss.

The Cyclones hope to avoid the same fate this year as they attempt to rebound from a devastating two-loss weekend against Texas Tech.

“It is important for us to come out prepared to play Drake,” said coach Stacy Gemeinhardt. “They definitely proved that they can beat us once, and we need to prove that we’re a better team than they saw last time.”

Iowa State looked like it had finally put everything together in Sunday’s game against Texas Tech. The offense was scoring, the pitching was good and the defense was solid – but only through the first six innings. All three components collapsed in the final regular and one extra inning, resulting in another close loss. The loss prompted Gemeinhardt to emphasize the importance of playing the whole game when the team faces Drake.

“As soon as you get distracted for a second, mistakes are going to be made,” Gemeinhardt said. “So it’s always important to make sure that you are playing every pitch from start to finish.”

Playing all seven innings is something that is just as important in the late innings as it is early in the game. Of late, the Cyclones have made it a habit to fall behind in the first inning, as seen in the Texas Tech game when pitcher Amie Ford allowed a first-inning run. Ford has allowed six first-inning runs in her last three starts – four against Texas, one against the University of Northern Iowa and one against Texas Tech.

The runs have placed the Cyclones in a hole to start the game, putting extra pressure on the offense to come from behind.

“That is something our offense should be able to deal with,” said shortstop Cary Akins. “But if we give up those runs early we do feel a certain amount of pressure to score because we’re working from behind.”

She stressed the importance of minimizing those first-inning runs.

“Coming out strong for the pitchers and shutting them down in the first inning will really help us gather momentum into the rest of the game,” Akins said. “Also it will give us a lot of confidence when we go up go bat.”

For an offense that has not been scoring many runs recently, any confidence they can get will help. The lack of runs has in turn magnified the one or two mistakes pitchers have made, leading the team to learn the importance of the offense picking up the pitchers when they aren’t at their best.

“We can’t expect them to be perfect. If we expect them to be perfect then we are putting too much pressure on them,” Akins said. “Our offense definitely needs to step it up and score a lot of runs to take the pressure off the pitchers so they can throw their game.”

Despite the offense’s struggles, it did show signs of life in Sunday’s game against Texas Tech, scoring three runs on eight hits – the most hits since March 25 in a win against Oklahoma State. The offensive action Sunday is something that Gemeinhardt is hoping to see continue.

“It is a completely different game when we’re putting the ball in play, and that was the hard thing about Sunday,” Gemeinhardt said. “We actually had a chance to win – a lot of chances – we just didn’t do it.”

The Cyclones, who haven’t dropped two games in the same season to Drake since 1994, will attempt to avoid that, as well as try win their first home game of the season at 4 p.m. Tuesday at the Southwest Athletic Complex.