The Iowa State Soccer team finished the 2016 season in 5th place in the Big 12.

It was the team’s most successful season yet under coach Tony Minatta, and the team was poised to make its first trip to the NCAA Tournament since 2005.

They weren’t selected.

“I think [that gave us] a lot of motivation [for this season],” Minatta said. “You’re sitting in the room and you see TCU (finished 7th in the Big 12), Texas Tech (8th) and then you see Oklahoma State (6th), who we beat. Then you see us not on there. “That really lit a fire under with these players and it was very emotional for this senior class to leave on.”

In the last nine years, no team with the same profile Iowa State had missed the tournament.

“It was frustrating,” Minatta said. “But it comes down to us being the new kids on the block, and they want us to prove it again.”

This season will be all about figuring out how to prove that Iowa State can be an NCAA Tournament team.

“I think that we all know it,” Ames native and Cyclone midfielder Stella Maris Strohman said. “We see it every single day. I think it’s been hard because we haven’t had the respect from the other teams and other programs. I think, last year, showed for the first time the level that we can reach. I think the belief that we have in ourselves is enough because if we can do that last year, what else can we do?”

Strohman enters her senior season with the Cyclones this fall.

“She has come a long way and went through a lot of adversity to get to this point and she is not going to want to see it falter in her last year,” Minatta said. “What we’ve talked about is leaving the jersey in a better place and leaving a legacy that can be remembered positively. For these players, we reached a pretty good high last year, and we want to surpass it.”

To surpass it, Minatta said he will rely on his team leadership which lies in the hands of players like goalkeeper Lindsey Hendon and midfielder Hannah Cade.

While Cade is ready to go for the 2017 season, Hendon is battling an ACL injury from February.

“Hendon is getting stronger every day,” Minatta said. “They said she was 75% two days ago. I think she might already be 80-85%. “She was such a solid player in goal last year, and she’s a senior and a leader.”

Hendon looks to return in September while Antonia Reyes and Dayja Schwichtenberg battle for a spot to be the temporary starter.

“I’ve got to tell you, the battle between Antonia [Reyes] and Dayja [Schwichtenberg] is something we have never seen before,” Minatta said. “If we can get through a couple more weeks with those two, [then] when Hendon gets back she’s coming back and leading the team.”

After suffering a stress fracture, Cade is back and ready to go.

“I’ve been on the field all summer and in the weight room,” Cade said. “I’ve been taking 2,000 touches a day, and working on the things that I know were my weaknesses last year so that they aren’t weaknesses this year.”

Minatta said that the biggest thing for Cade was the difficulty of playing a game on Friday in front of another on Sunday.

“For her, it’s about making sure that she is maximizing her effort in both games, knowing that both are important,” Minatta said. “As it went on and she got into Big 12 play, she figured it out.”

The Cyclones will open their season Saturday, August 12 when they take on the Purdue Boilermakers on the road in an exhibition game. The game will start at 1 p.m.