Twenty-plus mile per hour winds and an 11th-ranked Baylor Bear team added up to trouble for the Cyclone baseball team this weekend.

Baylor swept Iowa State in the three-game series to drop the Cyclones to 7-13 overall and 2-5 in conference play.

On Saturday, the Cyclones were drubbed in a twin bill by the counts of 14-2 and 11-1. On Sunday, the Bears posted a 23-8 victory.

“We went in knowing it was going to be a tough series,” ISU Coach Lyle Smith said. “I can see why they’re undefeated at home.”

Smith said he knew the Bears would be hungry after the Cyclones took two of three games at Cap Timm Field last season.

He said the windy conditions gave the free-swinging Bears an advantage over the base-hit prone Cyclones. In all, Baylor blasted 14 balls over the fence in the series.

“They had several home runs that would have been routine fly balls here,” he said.

Lead-off hitter Aaron Runk saw things the same way from his position.

“We were hitting line drives,” he said. “They were hitting towering fly balls.”

And in this case, the fly balls won out, while the line drives became outs.

“We did it [homered] occasionally,” Smith said. “[But] pitching-wise we could not keep them in check.”

Despite the final scores, Smith said some good things came out of the weekend.

For ISU, Runk extended his hitting streak to 10 games with hits in all three contests, including a home run on Saturday. Senior catcher Matt McDonough belted his fourth and fifth home runs on the Texas turf, and pitcher Brad Waldron hurled a solid game in Saturday’s nightcap.

“We did have some bright spots. Our effort was good; we kept battling,” Smith said.

He noted that the Cyclones battled back from six runs down in Sunday’s to tie the score in the top half of the fourth. Unfortunately, the roof caved in on ISU as eight runs crossed the plate in the bottom half of the frame.

Smith said the team’s woes have not been confined to hitting or pitching, but have been a mixture of the two.

“You can’t single one out over the other,” he said. “We just need to be more consistent. We have to take every game with a good approach.”

Runk said the Cyclones are more than ready to go into another game with that type of approach — if the team has the chance to play another one.

“We’ve been on the short end of the stick [with the weather and road games]. It kind of wears on you,” he said. “It can’t get any tougher.”

The Cyclones were looking forward to returning to Ames to play their first home game of the year, but poor playing conditions canceled Tuesday’s contest against Mankato State and have pushed the St. Ambrose game back to Thursday.

“You have to be mentally tough,” Smith said. “We’re faced with trying to prepare at the Rec Center at this time of the year.”

Runk said Thursday’s 3 p.m. game against St. Ambrose will be one that can help the team gain some momentum as it heads into a weekend set with Texas A&M.

Runk said, “We’ve just got to click as a team. We’re just not putting it all together.”

He said the team has the potential, but needs steadier play “on both sides of the ball.”

Texas A&M enters the weekend series ranked in the top 20 with a 26-10 record.