The ISU softball team has the opportunity to achieve something more impressive than just a win against a ranked team Tuesday. If they beat No. 16 Nebraska, the Cyclones can collect their 19th win of the year, surpassing the total number of wins they collected during last year’s 18-32 season.

“As a program you always want to get better every single year,” said pitcher Alyssa Ransom. “I think that for us to pass last year’s win total would be important to keep the momentum going into the next few years.”

The Cyclones (18-20) were 13-25 through the same number of games last season, showing that first-year coach Stacy Gemeinhardt has seemingly turned a traditionally sub-.500 program in a positive direction.

The improvement can be seen in a statistical comparison, as well. When comparing the Ruth Crowe-coached 2005 team against the 2006 team, this year’s team has shown improvement in 18 out of 20 batting and pitching statistical categories.

Not only has Iowa State improved statistically, but when it beat No.15 Texas A&M 14-6 last weekend, it proved it can play with top-ranked competition.

Wins against ranked opponents are something Ransom said helps show the Cyclones are an improving program.

“I think that our team can beat anyone in the Big 12 – we proved that by beating A&M,” she said. “We just have to play our game and that’s what’s so important about showing up every single day and giving 100 percent.”

Showing up every day with the same effort, however, has been a problem for Iowa State. After the impressive win over A&M, the Cyclones then came out on the losing side of the rematch, 7-0, a tell-tale sign the team is still growing. The team has hovered at .500, but has lacked consistency throughout the season at one time or another in offense, defense and pitching.

The team said it is not content with playing at just a .500 level and would like to make the jump to the next level.

“It is definitely a big goal right now to get back to even,” Ransom said. “Then once we get there, we want to go ahead and take the next step and get above .500.”

In order to make the jump, consistency becomes the No. 1 priority for a team that has at times displayed glimpses of greatness, but has at times looked like the team from 2005.

“It is probably the biggest thing being able to play the same way every time at that high of a level,” Gemeinhardt said.

“Consistency is something we have to find that we really haven’t. We’ve struggled at different things throughout the season, but we proved Saturday that when we get everything going in the same direction we do pretty well.”

Gemeinhardt has tried to impose the philosophy of consistency on her team through a variety of ways.

“A huge part of it is stressing [consistency] and talking about it at practice and trying to get them to realize that it is really important,” Gemeinhardt said. “So when they are doing drills during practice you hope they can get in a rhythm and find some consistency in practice and carry that over to the game.”

They face Nebraska Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. at the Southwest Athletic Complex, taking it on the road to Nebraska on Wednesday.