With the Hilton lights dimmed for the Cyclone’s spotlight entrance, and the reigning Big 12 champion Oklahoma waiting in the wings, gymnastics coach K.J. Kindler offered one word of motivation before taking the floor Friday night — “point oh-two-five.”

Team co-captain Erin Dethloff said the team agreed Kindler’s simple reminder of last season’s heartbreaking .025-point loss to the Sooners at last year’s Big 12 championship provided it with all the motivation it would need to overcome a rough week in practice and pull out the win.

Despite a series of injuries in practice last week, the ninth-ranked Cyclones took an eight-tenths lead in the first rotation and didn’t stop until winning the match 196.25-195.05 over the seventh-rated Sooners.

In the first rotation, all-arounders Janet Anson and Laura-Kay Powell started the Cyclones off by nailing two vaults and earning a pair of 9.95s to take a first-place tie on the event while Oklahoma suffered several disastrous falls on bars from which it would not recover.

“I’m super proud of how intense the team came in here tonight,” Kindler said.

For the rest of the meet, Iowa State flexed the depth of its team, as four alternates stepped into in the lineup after an ankle injury kept Dethloff from competing on floor, and a sprained hamstring sidelined sophomore Ashley Alden from her top spots on the beam, bars and floor.

As event alternates, team co-captain Kacey Oiness came through on bars with a 9.775, while freshman Lindsey Murphy posted a 9.675 on beam. On the floor, sophomore Rachael Parker competed in the Cyclone floor lineup for the first time, posting a 9.70, followed by senior Abigail Richey, who stepped in with a 9.725.

“We had a lot of obstacles to overcome tonight,” Parker said. “We were really excited to pull through for the team.”

The alternates’ scores had a huge impact on the team’s final standing, as they covered for falls from several of the lineups’ regulars — Anson on beam, Powell on bars and Oiness on floor.

Despite several blooper moments throughout the meet, the Cyclones posted their second-highest team score this season, becoming the only team in the Big 12 history to remain unbeaten in conference action, keeping their 10-meet home winning streak alive.

Kindler said the win was huge for the Cyclones, and doing so with small mistakes, at only half of their strength is another testament to the Cyclone’s potential going into the postseason.

“We have a lot to work on,” Dethloff said.

“But [Oklahoma] is the Big 12 champion and has been to nationals before — beating them still proves something.”

The Cyclones move to 9-1 (3-0 Big 12) on the season and travel to Oregon State next weekend for a quadrangular meet with Washington and University of California at Davis.