Being on a cold streak can be difficult.

It seems that no matter how hard a team tries during rough patches, games seem to never turn up in their favor.

The ISU softball team knows this feeling all too well at the moment, losing eight games in a row. The Cyclones are trying to break that losing streak this week. 

Iowa State will be playing Creighton (22-12, 6-1 Big East) in Omaha, Nebraska on Wednesday and then will travel back home to play Omaha (20-21, 7-1 Summit League) in Ames on Thursday.

The Cyclones haven’t won a game in two weeks, and they’ve gone 0-6 in Big 12 play.

But this hasn’t affected team outlook heading into the two games this weekend. Keeping positivity is the only thing a team can do when games don’t bounce in the desired direction.

“I want them to feel that we have great opportunities this week and next week and we’ll have a bye weekend from conference,” said ISU softball coach Stacy Gemeinhardt-Cesler.

The Cyclones haven’t lost focus. Practice on Tuesday was bright and sunny and music was playing on the sound system. Gemeinhardt-Cesler wants them to feel good about going into the weekend.

Senior Aly Cappaert said she isn’t losing hope after this stretch.

“I think we’re fine — we’ve played some good teams over the last few weeks,” Cappaert said. “As a team, we are starting to hit a lot better.”

Iowa State continues to work on issues that have come up during games, whether they’re obvious or just minor tweaks.

“It’s a lot of people figuring out what works for themselves,” Cappaert said. “Softball is an individual sport, [it’s just staying] within ourselves and knowing what we can do.”

Junior Cathlin Bingham said it’s important to move past games like that to keep positive.

“Each game we put behind us we don’t talk about [how] we haven’t won in a while,” Bingham said. “After a bad game we don’t get down on each other. After it happens it happens, there’s nothing we can do about the game, the only thing we can do is improve.”

The only thing that Iowa State is focused on at this point is getting the two wins heading toward its bye weekend. The players will keep working on their own issues to come together stronger.

“I think they are two winnable games,” Cappaert said. “If we play our game we’ll win, if they play their game it’s going to be a really good game.”

When asked about how important it is for the team to get a win, Gemeinhardt-Cesler said the record isn’t going to affect her outlook on winning.

“Every win at this point [regardless of record] feels like we want it badly,” Gemeinhardt-Cesler said. “You’re never really in a position to [say] ‘Oh we don’t need to win that game.’ No, we need to win them all.”