The Iowa State women’s softball team finished out its fall season on Saturday going 1-2 in its own three-team invitational.

The invite, officially named the Iowa State Invitational, brought Grandview and the University of Minnesota to town.

ISU met Grandview in the early game of the day and came away with an 8-0 win.

Mandy Loushin took the mound and finished the game with four strikeouts while only giving up one hit on the way to the victory.

Kristen Ferguson joined the game in relief during the sixth inning striking out one to complete the shutout.

Loushin and Ferguson were helped out offensively by Lisa Frank and Kim Hoover.

Frank capped off a perfect showing at the plate going 3-3 in the game while Hoover went 2-4 with one RBI.

“We did what we should have done against a team we should dominate,” said head coach Ruth Crowe of the victory over Grandview. “We’re a division one team while they’re in a smaller division. The game came out exactly how I would have predicted.”

ISU met Minnesota in the next game of the day.

The game would prove to be a nail-biter right down to the last inning.

Michelle Junod started off the scoring in the game coming home off an RBI single by Lisa Frank in the third inning to give ISU the early lead.

Minnesota came back to score a pair of runs in the sixth to put them ahead by one.

The game came down to the Cyclones’ last at-bat, but they just weren’t quite able to capitalize.

“A couple of mistakes and errors hurt our chances for a win,” Crowe said. “Another problem for us has been our hitting. We just haven’t been able to hit with runners in scoring positon.

“That’s one thing we need to work on,” she said. “We always out-hit our opponents with no one on base, but that doesn’t help us out much when you get down to it.”

Jen Bice pitched in the 2-1 loss for the Cyclones, striking out eight and giving up four hits.

Michelle Junod took up some of the slack offensively, going 5-9 in the three games with two RBIs, one home run and two doubles.

The last game of the day saw ISU again pitted against Minnesota.

Erica Martinez handled the majority of the pitching duties, striking out three and giving up only one hit before being relieved by Loushin in the fifth inning.

The Cyclones weren’t able to come back with a victory against Minnesota, falling to the Gophers, 4-0.

“I was disappointed with both of our games against Minnesota,” Crowe said. “They’re a team that we should be playing with. We’re both division one teams, so we should be at their level.

“This [fall season] really exposed us to what we need to work on in the off-season,” she said. “We really have a lot of work to do. We played like we practiced, and that has to improve.”