Peaches James earned first team All-Big 12 Conference honors last season. This season, she appears in position to receive that honor again.

James, a junior right-handed pitcher, tossed a five-hit shutout and Sheena Lawrick connected on a two-run home run to lift the No. 7 Nebraska Cornhuskers to a 3-0 win over the Cyclones in Big 12 Conference play at the Southwest Athletic Complex on Wednesday.

With the win, the Cornhuskers improved to 25-8 overall and 3-4 in the conference. The Cyclones dropped to 13-19, 1-4.

James, who posted a 22-9 record last season, only allowed one extra base hit — a Kelly Wardein double in the second inning. She struck out four ISU batters and only walked two. She said her curveball was working along with mixing her other pitches through out the game.

“My curve today was all right. I just had to really do a good mix with them because they’re good hitters,” James said. “There were a few innings that had a couple of things that didn’t feel quite right, but overall I pitched OK.”

Last season, Iowa State lost to Nebraska 8-3 in Ames but connected with nine hits on James. ISU head coach Ruth Crowe complimented James on her five-hit shutout.

“Peaches is a very good pitcher,” Crowe said. “I thought we hit her a little bit today. We hit her better last year.”

In the first inning the Cyclone defense committed two errors, but ISU starting pitcher Lindsey Herrin got out of the jam.

Nebraska scored their first run in the second inning as Kim Ogee hit a sacrifice fly to left field, which scored Liz Lawhorn from third. After two quick outs in the third inning, James hit a double to right-center field. Then Lawrick smashed the very first pitch from Herrin over the right field fence to put the Cornhuskers up 3-0.

James and Lawrick each went 2-for-4 at the plate. Amanda Buchholz and Anne Steffan both went 2-for-3 at the plate for Nebraska.

Crowe said the Cornhuskers used a combination of hits to take the lead.

“They had some bloop hits — little cheap things kinda fall in — and they ripped the ball,” Crowe said. “They’re a good team. They’re the type of team that’s going to make things happen. They put a lot more balls in play then we did and that was probably the difference.”

Herrin, a sophomore right-hander, scattered 10 hits and walked one, but didn’t strike out a batter. She said James pitched a good game to keep the Cyclone batters off-balance.

“It’s not that we didn’t necessarily hit her. Last year, we hit her hard. We didn’t strike out up at the plate. We just didn’t make solid contact,” Herrin said. “When we did make solid contact, we got runners on but no one made the key hit to push them across.”

Iowa State left eight runners on base, including four in scoring position.

With Erica Martinez, one of the team’s top players, out of the lineup due to a stress fracture in her arm, Crowe said the team is trying to get out of an offensive hole.

“Not having Erica Martinez in the lineup, really hurts us. It hurts us at the plate,” Crowe said. “It’s one more big hitter that we don’t have in there, and it puts more pressure on other people that you don’t necessary count on game in and game out to be carrying the load.”

The Cyclones hope to get back on the winning track this weekend when they travel to play No. 5 Oklahoma in Norman, Okla.