The ISU women’s soccer team will hit the road this weekend to face the Missouri Tigers on Friday and the Kansas Jayhawks on Sunday.

The Cyclones are coming off a tough home game against the 23rd-ranked Nebraska Cornhuskers in which they were defeated 2-0. The loss dropped them to 2-4 in the conference and 5-7-1 overall.

Rebecca Hornbacher, ISU interim head coach, said she felt good about her team’s effort against Nebraska and was especially pleased with the 11-10 shot margin against one of the most physical teams in the conference.

“We had our opportunities but we let in two goals off of corner kicks,” Hornbacher said. “We continued to compete for 90 minutes and for that I’m happy.”

Erin Weldon, sophomore defender for the Cyclones, said she feels that the team is coming together very well and as long as everyone continues to work hard for one another, they will be successful.

“We need to keep working hard in practice and continue to make strides to get where we need to be,” Weldon said.

Hornbacher said that she is very pleased with the week-to-week progress her team is making and she feels they are a totally different team now than they were when they began the season.

“The team has shown a lot of character putting in extra effort outside of practice, and they have a real commitment to excellence,” Hornbacher said.

“We are definitely better 13 games into the season than anyone would have expected because everyone is playing off of each other, and the team is responding really well to the new coaching staff,” Weldon said.

Hornbacher said that the Cyclones will now look ahead to playing two solid teams.

She feels they will need to continue to focus on getting effort from everyone and attacking in numbers to take advantage of the opposition’s mistakes.

Weldon feels that playing good defense as a team and avoiding small mistakes — which the other team could capitalize on — could be the key to victory this weekend on the road.

Hornbacher said the Cyclones are on the right track to a successful season and are enthusiastic about their progress.

“You don’t want to peak too early in a soccer season and we are continuing to get better and better going into the Big 12 tournament,” Hornbacher said.