Sophomore midfielder Deb Benakis has a simple way to describe the ISU women’s soccer team’s approach for its two games this weekend.

“If you don’t shoot, you don’t score,” she said. “We’re going to try and get more shots.”

The Cyclones will travel to Normal, Ill. Friday to take on Illinois State at 3:30 p.m. The team then hosts Mississippi State Sunday at the ISU Soccer Complex at 1 p.m. Iowa State goes into the weekend with a 2-2-1 overall record.

In preparation for the two games, head coach Rebecca Hornbacher said the team members had a good week of learning one another’s tendencies through offensive situations.

“We definitely have been focusing the last few practices on attacking opportunities and being able to work [with] each other a little more effectively,” Hornbacher said. “We’re a very young team, so we’re working on going through patterns with them and having them feel more comfortable with each other, and I think I’ve definitely seen some great improvements in that area.”

One of the Illinois State players that Iowa State will be focusing on is junior defender Heather Forsyth, who was named as the Missouri Valley Conference Defensive Player of the Week, Monday. Illinois State is coming off a 2-0 loss to Illinois last Friday and is 2-2-1 overall.

Mississippi State recorded its first loss of the season on Tuesday when it was defeated by Samford 2-0. The team is 4-1-1 on the season.

In their last two games, the Cyclones have been outshot 47-16.

Benakis said the team plans on attacking more in the offensive zone.

“We’re going to try and get more numbers in the attack,” Benakis said. “I feel like we have a more organized attack now that we’ve gone through everything and everyone knows what they’re doing, where they’re supposed to be — and hopefully that’ll get more shots and more goals.”

Freshman midfielder Jess Villhauer, who scored her first collegiate goal in Sunday’s loss to Michigan, said the team learned a lot from coming back and scoring two goals late in the second half after falling behind 4-0.

“It told us that we can fight back,” Villhauer said. “Even though we were down and the conditions weren’t that good, we just buckled down as a team and fought back like we know we can. We just have to do that sooner.”

Despite the loss to Michigan, Hornbacher said the team is confident heading into the two games.

“They’re ready to get back in play,” Hornbacher said. “We had a great game against Wisconsin. They battled and finished out well against Michigan but we really need to go out and raised the bar another level for these two games this weekend.”