After losing seven letterwinners from last year’s squad, the No. 19 ISU gymnastics team finds itself 4-6 overall and 0-3 in the Big 12.

The team is ranked 13th on the floor exercise, 16th on the balance beam and 21st on vault. Their team consists of six freshmen, three sophomores, two juniors and just two seniors.

“It is a rebuilding season,” senior co-captain Karen Kuplicki said. “I think, however, that our end result will be more successful than in years past.”

The season started out tough for the Cyclones, who lost at Missouri and two weeks later lost to Denver and Penn State at the Denver Triangular.

“We started slow — probably not what I envisioned,” head coach K.J. Kindler said. “But I don’t think that has hurt us at all.”

Kindler said confidence plays an important role in younger athletes.

“They were building confidence, learning what it’s like to compete and to be on the road and compete. They were learning what college gymnastics is all about,” Kindler said. “It was a slow start, but not necessarily a bad start.”

“We’ve gone through some rough times, especially like our first meet, but we’ve just gotten better,” freshman Erin Dethloff said. “I think that our team has really come together.”

With the exception of the Missouri meet, Kindler doesn’t think the Cyclones have lost a meet they should have won. They hope to vindicate that loss when the Cyclones host Missouri on March 7.

After placing third at Denver, the Cyclones returned home to defeat Iowa for the 19th consecutive time.

“Our victory against Iowa was a great meet. I really didn’t know the pressure that there was — the 18 straight victories,” Dethloff said.

“They came in and they were hitting their routines and we were hitting ours, and we got the win.”

Dethloff, an Omaha, Neb., native, is aiming to be Big 12 newcomer of the year. She may have a shot at it.

Dethloff has already received Big 12 Gymnast of the Week honors and is ranked 12th in the nation in the all-around, No. 18 on the uneven bars and 19th on floor.

She has also taken first in the all-around at four competitions and second at three.

Along with Dethloff, eight other Cyclones have set career highs this season.

Kindler has been happy with the performances of the underclassmen and believes the team is feeling much more confident — which means that the freshmen are feeling more confident because they make up half of the team.

She singled out Dethloff and Laura-Kay Powell as those who have gained the most confidence.

“The rest of our freshmen are gearing towards doing more events than they are right now,” Kindler said. “They’re ready to go on bars now; they’re ready to go on beam. Before, they weren’t quite ready.”

Like most other sports, the gymnasts can go through times where nothing seems to be working quite right or everything seems to be going wrong. As a veteran, Kuplicki said she’s seen it before.

“There will always be slumps whether they are in practice or in meets. You just try to make them not noticeable and you try to work through what you can and I think we do a good job working through,” Kuplicki said. “Towards the end of the season they will be behind us and we will be full speed ahead.”

Kindler, in her third year as ISU head coach, agreed.

“They’ve had eight meets and it is starting to get where it gets monotonous and getting old,” Kindler said. “They’re doing the same routine every day and at some point they feel like it’s getting tiresome.”

But they know every meet is important and when it comes to the weekend and they get rid of that mentality, Kindler said.

“They’ve totally attacked the last few meets,” Kindler said.

The attacking mentality was prevalent in a big win for the Cyclones at the Florida Triangular. Despite losing to Florida, they were able to avenge their earlier loss to Denver.

“A high point of the season thus far for obvious reasons was beating No. 12 Denver, especially after we had lost at their place,” Kindler said.

The Cyclones took the momentum of their performance in Florida to their meet at rival Minnesota where they narrowly defeated the Golden Gophers.

“It’s obvious the progress we’ve made,” Kindler said. “You can see from meet to meet how much better we’re becoming each time we go out there. I’m excited for the rest of the year.”

With only four meets remaining before the postseason, the Cyclones have goals that are centered on the Big 12 Championships that begin on March 29. They also have the regional and national competitions, which take place in April, in the back of their minds.

But Kindler said there are other goals they must achieve first to get there.

“We’ve always had the goal to make it to nationals,” Kindler said. “We don’t really talk about that yet. We’re focusing on what we’re doing every week and what’s coming up — not what is way out in front of us. So we know each step we make is going toward that goal.”

The Cyclones were one of the 12 teams that made the national competition in 2000, fresh off a conference championship.

To get to nationals, the team must first make it through regionals; of the 36 teams at each regional, 18 are seeded according to six of the team’s best regular-season scores.

The Cyclones have been seeded in the top 12 the last three years and they hope to be seeded in the top 18 again this year, Kindler said.

Three team scores from home meets and three from away meets are compiled to determine the seeding for regionals.

Kindler said her team has to count a 192 score and hopes to score above 196 points soon to drop that score.

“If we do that we’re sitting good to be seeded in regionals,” Kindler said.

But for now, Kindler knows the task at hand: getting that first conference victory. Iowa State still has a chance to do it before the postseason with a meet at home against Missouri and a meet at Nebraska.

“We make different goals for every meet and sometimes we meet them and sometimes we fall short,” Kindler said. “But definitely they’re going in the right direction and they’re making progress.”