Mozey: Looking back, it was a good fall season for Iowa State sports
December 22, 2017
There’s one big game left to conclude the fall sports for Iowa State this season and it’s time to look back at the last few months.
Cross Country
You couldn’t ask for a better season from both men’s and women’s cross-country teams. In the beginning, it looked like the program Iowa State fans have come to know under the direction of Martin Smith.
A perfect record at the Hawkeye Invitational to start the season, but then some drama came into play before the Roy Griak Invitational as a number of men’s runners got sick and Smith had to pull his team out of the race.
That was a big decision by Smith because that race could’ve helped Iowa State with an at-large bid when the NCAA Championships came closer in the month of November. He decided it was the best decision for his team.
The two teams came into the Big 12 Championships with some unstable finishes in Wisconsin a couple weeks before, so it was a run of mystery for most Cyclone fans. The mystery became a reality after both the men’s and women’s teams finished in first place at the Big 12 Championships.
That confidence and motivation continued to push the Cyclone runners as they both won first place at the NCAA Midwest Regional, which was hosted in Ames, Iowa, this season.
Those first-place titles allowed both teams to run in the NCAA National Championships on Nov. 18. The men’s team placed seventh, while the women’s team placed 20th, but for Smith, it was a step in the right direction.
This was undoubtedly a successful season for the cross-country program because the two teams faced their challenges head on and “ran” through the competition to become Big 12 and NCAA Midwest champions.
The scary part is that both teams have the majority of their top runners coming back next season, which means they should be back in the NCAA National Championship and maybe earning a top five or even first place finish in that race.
Tennis
After losing Samantha Budai this season, it was a time for coach Armando Espinosa to figure out who his number one singles player would be and how this team was going to stay dominant similar to last season.
The team had four weekends of invitationals and tournaments during the fall season, but those four weekends allowed a handful of singles players to showcase their talents. For example, Karen Alvarez finished in fourth place in Singles 3 during the Bluejay Invitational at the end of September.
Annabella Bonadonna finished out the fall season with an impressive weekend at the CSUN Invitational in November. She finished the weekend with an unbeaten record and turned Espinosa’s head regarding who he wants to play during the regular season.
I knew this fall was going to be a harder semester for the tennis program because Espinosa had a big set of shoes to fill with the absence of Budai this season. I think he’s taking steps in the right direction to find his one, two and three singles players, but it’s taking longer than expected.
Once the regular season starts in January, I think this team will find its groove and have a dominant non-conference record. I’m excited to see who will be taking over that number one spot this spring season.
Golf
I would say it was a successful fall season for both the men’s and women’s golf teams. Each team had four invitationals or golf tournaments all across the country, but those four events showed the abilities and potential these two teams have for the spring season.
The women’s team finished in the top 10 for each tournament with their best performance coming in mid-September at the East and West Match Play in Madison, Wisconsin. The Cyclones finished in first place over the host team Wisconsin, which was the first time since 2012 that Iowa State women’s golf had a first-place team finish.
With a women’s team that consists of half the roster being seniors and the other half being underclassmen, the seniors have displayed that leadership on the course. Celia Barquin Arozamena and Nattapan Siritrai, both seniors, were the main contributors to the first-place win for Iowa State in Wisconsin.
The men’s team also shined by placing sixth or higher in three of the four tournaments this fall. Their best finish was third place in the Northern Intercollegiate at the end of September.
The main thing for the men’s team is to not repeat what happened last season after a strong start in the fall season. Last year, they finished the spring season in ninth place out of 10 teams at the Big 12 Championship.
The women’s and men’s teams had a strong start to their 2017-18 golf season, but they just need to continue stepping on the gas pedal and repeating similar results from the fall to the spring season. If they can do that, both teams will have a great chance to earn a Big 12 Championship and compete for a NCAA Regional and NCAA National title.
Soccer
Well, that didn’t go according to plan. The Iowa State soccer team looked strong as ever, before the season.
After not making the NCAA Tournament in 2016, in which the Cyclones deserved to be in, the 2017 team was looking for revenge. What they didn’t realize was that they would be looking for more players at the end of the 2017 season.
The Iowa State soccer team faced injury after injury after injury. Once a player recovered from an injury, another player would get injured. In some cases, multiple players would go down with injuries.
These injuries didn’t put these players out for a couple games, they were season ending injuries, which took away Iowa State’s confidence and made it a challenging season for coach Tony Minatta.
Minatta faced three season-ending injuries before the Big 12 regular season started, which resulted in a 3-12-3 overall record and a 1-6-2 Big 12 record. Minatta has the ability to control a lot of aspects for his team like the lineup, the game plan, the plays and the practice plan each day. The only thing he can’t control is injuries and that’s what resulted in a season this team can forget.
Volleyball
Another volleyball season in the books and another NCAA Tournament appearance for a legendary coach in Christy Johnson-Lynch. In my column before the season, I said this team has the potential to play for a national championship.
That prediction didn’t come true as Iowa State fell to Wisconsin in three straight sets in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
The one thing I did get right was the accolades Hali Hillegas was going to receive after the season. Once again, Iowa State has a libero that’s named Big 12 Libero of the Year. It’s become a common occurrence for the Cyclones in that position, but that wasn’t the only position that received some recognition for Iowa State.
Jess Schaben, Samara West and Alexis Conaway won accolades after the season for the Iowa State volleyball program. It was also an impressive season for Johnson-Lynch and the team as they were seeded in the NCAA Tournament allowing them to host the first and second rounds of the NCAA Tournament at Hilton Coliseum.
The volleyball season ended with a 22-7 record and a 11-5 Big 12 record this season, but the future only looks bright for the Cyclones. Even though the team is losing Monique Harris, Genesis Miranda, West and Conaway, the team still has key pieces left of this season’s roster.
I’d expect another NCAA Tournament appearance for Johnson-Lynch and the Iowa State volleyball team next season. Stay tuned.
Football
Last, but certainly not least, is the Iowa State football team. After a 3-9 record in the 2016 season, coach Matt Campbell brought this team to life for the 2017 season.
Whether it was the leadership of the senior class or the offseason work that each player talks about during the season, something clicked in that locker room resulting in a 7-5 overall record and a 5-4 Big 12 record.
This was the first time since 2009 that Iowa State had a winning record to finish the season and the first time since 2005 that Iowa State was ranked in the AP Top 25 poll throughout the season. The 7-5 record allowed the Cyclones to be bowl eligible for the first time since 2012.
Iowa State will head back to the same bowl as the 2012 season, the AutoZone Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tennessee. How the Cyclones reached those seven wins was much different than my prediction at the beginning of the season.
I said Iowa State would beat Akron, Texas, Northern Iowa, Kansas, Texas Tech and Iowa to earn six wins and get into a bowl game. I was right about the wins against Akron, Northern Iowa, Kansas and Texas Tech, but little did I, or the rest of the country know, that Iowa State would beat then-No. 3 Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma, and then-No. 4 TCU during homecoming weekend.
It was a tale of two months for Iowa State as the Cyclones went 4-0 in the month of October and 1-3 in the month of November. Now, the focus is on the Liberty Bowl and finding a way to beat Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee.
Win or lose in the Liberty Bowl, Campbell has made a statement this season to make his program nationally recognized, while also building these players the right way. It’ll be an interesting week ahead before the bowl game and then it’s time to say goodbye to some big names in the Iowa State football program.
Names like Allen Lazard, Joel Lanning, Jake Campos, Kamari Cotton-Moya, Kyle Kempt and the list goes on for seniors that will be playing their last game next Saturday. It’s been a fun season for the Iowa State fans and, now, there’s hope for the future and building this program into a national champion like Campbell said when he arrived in Ames a couple years ago.
Overall, I think this fall season was a dominant season for Iowa State athletics. Sure, there were some ups and downs with each sport, but for the most part it was an exciting season to be an Iowa State Cyclone fan.
The focus changes to the winter season and seeing what men’s basketball, women’s basketball, wrestling and swimming and diving can do before the rest of the spring sports start up at the end of January.
One season down for the 2017-18 year. Two more to go.
