Coming off of a bounce-back 8-2 win over DePaul on Tuesday night, Iowa State looked ahead to hosting No. 5 Oklahoma State for a three-game home series.
Highlighted by a Camille Marin walk-off home run, the Cyclones stormed their way through the Cowgirls and took a top-five team down twice at home.
Home run barrage highlights scoring by both teams
For both Iowa State and Oklahoma State, its scoring from the series mainly relied on the long ball, which played a key role in the 2-1 series win by the Cyclones.
Iowa State hit four home runs, two in the same game, that helped vault the team over the Cowgirls on Friday and Saturday.
The biggest home run to come out of this series was the walk-off hit by Marin in the second game, which sealed the series win for Iowa State.
For the senior catcher, this was the second career home run in four years with the Cyclones. The first came in a big way and was the eventual game-winning run against then-No. 16 Baylor in 2023.
While the Cowgirls did not hit a home run until the final game of the series, they got it going right away and kept their foot on the gas, clobbering four home runs in the fifth and sixth innings that led to their 10-2 win.
Cyclones’ pitching stifles Cowgirls’ hitting
Against any ranked team, especially a top-five one, it was expected that those types of teams would put up big offensive numbers, especially against a team like Iowa State that is having a down year.
Besides the last game of the series, that was not the case. The Cyclone pitching tandem went on to stall Oklahoma State’s offense through the first two games of the series, which eventually led to Iowa State’s two big victories.
The Cyclones were led by sophomore Jaiden Ralston, who made an appearance in all three games. In the three appearances, Ralston pitched seven innings and allowed five hits, four runs and totaled five strikeouts.
While the Cowgirls’ offense was not one of the best in the Big 12, they still averaged over a .300 batting average per game which has led to their No. 5 ranking.
Even with Oklahoma State finding its hitting stride in the final game of the three-game series, the Cowgirls’ slow start from the plate came to ultimately be their demise with the Cyclones taking the series away from the ranked program.
Highest-ranked series win in Iowa State’s program history
While the season has not been ideal for the Cyclones, picking up not just one, but two wins against a top-five team in the country will definitely be atop of the season’s accomplishments when it is all said and done.
But for this series in particular, it will go down as the highest-ranked series win in Iowa State’s softball program history.
Despite the program existing for nearly six decades, the Cyclones picked up their biggest ranked series win in an exciting way, as the game-winning home run by Marin sealed the historical feat for Iowa State.
Even as the season continues to dwindle for the Cyclones, they will be looking to end off the season strong with a confidence-boosting series win against a highly-ranked team behind them.
