The ISU softball team’s home opener was delayed by Mother Nature again, this time with a rain out of Monday’s North Dakota State doubleheader.

It was the second time in five days the game has been canceled, and now they will not be rescheduled.

“It was heartbreaking,” said senior shortstop Cary Akins. “Everyone was looking forward to our first home game and playing on our home field.”

Nevertheless, Iowa State did not let the rain get them down too much, as they prepare for Wednesday’s non-conference matchup on the road against intrastate rival Drake.

“We’ve been traveling a lot and we feel we’ve gotten some good days in,” said coach Stacy Gemeinhardt. “We were able to practice outside today, so it’s not even a factor really.”

The rain out may have been a blessing in disguise for the Cyclones. Despite winning their Big 12 opener against Oklahoma State last Saturday, the Cyclones committed eight errors in the two-game series, which ultimately cost them the second game by a score of 9-1.

The postponement gave Iowa State the opportunity to get an extra practice in and fine-tune some areas of its game in preparation for Drake.

“As much as we were looking forward to playing on our home field, we were also coming right off a loss and traveling,” Akins said. “Most everybody really took advantage of the break as a time to recover and refocus on what we need to do to play.”

Iowa State has played in six different cities and traveled 8,765 miles on their grueling season-opening road trip. The Cyclones will return to the familiarity of the road Wednesday when they travel to Des Moines.

Iowa State holds the all-time series lead against Drake 62-12, and is currently riding a 15-game winning streak against the Bulldogs. Iowa State, however, was uneasy about putting too much stock in its past success against Drake.

“It definitely gives us a lot of confidence knowing that we have that kind of record, but it is also one of those things that can come back to bite us if we get overconfident,” Akins said. “We kind of keep that in the back of our minds as something to build us up, but we can’t let it make us lazy or lackadaisical against Drake.”

Despite Iowa State’s dominance of Drake, and Drake’s sub-.500 record of 12-16, the Cyclones (15-12) will not be overlooking a Drake squad that beat them in the fall and is coming straight off a win over No. 25 Southern Illinois.

“It never even crossed my mind to overlook them,” Gemeinhardt said.

“I think that they are a good team, and we have to come out and play our game if we even want to have a chance to win, so there’s no issue of looking past them whatsoever.”

Softball players said they are not overlooking Drake because the game gives them one last chance to tune-up before hosting No. 3 Texas for a two-game series this weekend.

“To have a good win there will be good coming in on Texas,” said sophomore pitcher Amie Ford. “We need to go in there and win so we’ll have confidence playing Texas.”

Ford will attempt to improve on her 9-5 record and lower her 1.47 earned run average, which leads the team – and is fifth in the Big 12 – when she takes the circle for the Cyclones at 4 p.m. Wednesday at Buel Field in Des Moines.