It was long awaited – then delayed by snow for five days – but for the first time all season the Cyclones softball team will take the field to the cheers of their own home crowd at the Southwest Athletic Complex.

“I know we’re all looking forward to it,” senior shortstop Cary Akins said. “It is always fun playing, and having all your friends come and watch and it always makes it a lot more meaningful.”

Iowa State will play its first home games of the season in the form of a doubleheader at noon Monday against North Dakota State in a non-conference matchup.

The Cyclones have played all 27 of their games on the road this season, making the road feel a little bit more like home. Iowa State, however, doesn’t feel as though it will be tough to adjust to finally being back at home.

“I don’t think it will be to bad making the transition,” junior catcher Ashley Killeen said. “I think we’re all pretty excited to play at home, so we’ll just be happy to be back.”

In fact, team members feel as though being at home should offer some advantages they have been lacking while playing on the road.

“We know the field,” Akins said. “Also, sometimes if the weather conditions are a little adverse, it’s something we’re a little more used to.”

The Cyclones will try to use their home-field advantage to bounce back from a tough 9-1 loss to Oklahoma State last weekend.

“We’re going to go in there and try to come back from the game that we lost strong,” Akins said. “And we have to show that it’s not going to affect us, and that it’s only going to make us better.”

In order to rebound from the loss, Killeen stressed the importance of limiting errors when they take on North Dakota State.

“When you give a team five or six outs they are going to take advantage of that,” Killeen said. “It is really hard to win games when you do that.”

Errors once again characterized Iowa State’s first two Big 12 games against Oklahoma State. The team committed four errors but managed to win 7-3 Saturday, and committed four more in Sunday’s 9-1 loss. In the loss, errors resulted in three of Oklahoma State’s first four runs being unearned.

“It’s always a momentum killer and you lose a little bit of confidence when you start making errors,” Akins said. “Obviously they affected us a little bit and that’s just something we can improve on in the future.”

The Cyclones offense remained subdued by the pitching of both Chelsey Barclay and Kristina Giustozzi of Oklahoma State, and they were unable to rescue the defense as they had the day before.

“When you score seven runs like we did it allows the defense to play more relaxed,” coach Stacy Gemeinhardt said. “Even though we had errors [in Saturday’s game], if you hit the ball it helps out the pitcher, the defense and everybody.”

Oklahoma (14-14) and Iowa State (15-12) both move to 1-1 in the Big 12, and despite ending the weekend on a sour note, the team sees some positives.

“It was really up and down,” Akins said. “The more we learn from this weekend, the less mistakes we will make in the future, and the better we will be for the rest of the Big 12 season.”