Home field advantage may mean little to some people, but to the Iowa State woman’s soccer team it means the world.

After going winless in their first four contests, all of which were on the road, the Cyclones came home for the first time on Saturday and promptly captured the first victory in program history by the score of 2-1 over the St. Cloud State Huskies.

“Winning at home was nice, but it just feels great to win and know that we can,” Head Coach Cathy Klein said.

“It was great to win in front of our home fans,” said Dawn Petersen, a sophomore sweeper.

Sophomore forward Dawn Weber led the way for the Cyclones with both of the team’s goals.

“It feels good to win,” Weber said. “We’ve been working hard in practice, so it’s great to know it’s finally paying off.”

The game’s first score came when Weber blasted a shot past St. Cloud goalkeeper Kristen Evanson off of a centering pass from freshman forward Jocelyn Nordstrom.

This goal gave ISU the lead 1-0 with 21:02 to play in the first half.

Weber was not done yet, though, as she netted her second, and the eventual game-winning goal with 43:04 left in the second half to give the Cyclones a 2-0 cushion.

A penalty shot with 6:04 remaining in the game proved to be too little, too late for the Huskies as they could get no closer than 2-1 the rest of the way.

Throughout much of the game, St. Cloud State shadowed Nordstrom, so much so, said Klein, that it seemed they had forgotten about the rest of the team.

“They were so worried about Jocelyn that they left everyone else alone and that hurt them,” Klein said. “We won due to the combination of Dawn and Jocelyn. Dawn scored and Jocelyn created.”

The other major factors in the ISU triumph were ball-control and team confidence.

“We worked all week on transition from defense to offense and scoring goals and it payed off,” Klein said.

“The longer we kept the ball in their half, the more our confidence grew,” Klein said. “And the more our confidence grew, the more capable we were of attacking.”

“The big difference in the game was our confidence.”

It was confidence that the Cyclones were sorely in need of going into the game and now that they have it, they plan to use it to their full advantage.

“This win will give us the confidence to do even better next time,” said Louise Fries, a junior forward. “Now we know what we have to do to win.”

“This is a definite confidence booster for us,” Weber said. “We’ve been taking a lot of slack from the other teams, but now I think we’ll get some respect.”

The Cyclones were very appreciative of the fan turnout for their inaugural home game. Attendance for the game was close to 200 people.

“The fan support helps a lot,” Petersen said. “It brings out more intensity in us.