In a world where everyone knows when a top football or basketball recruit commits to Iowa State, it is often questioned how other ISU teams such as the softball team secure a commitment.

Glancing at the ISU softball roster, it is sprinkled with talent from California, Texas, Florida, Minnesota and Iowa. So how do the ISU coaches find the talented players who now don an ISU uniform?

To begin, there are two contact periods allowed by the NCAA for softball. One of the periods occurs from Aug. 1 to Nov. 26, and the other occurs from Jan. 2 to July 31.

During these contact periods, coaches can invite prospects for unofficial or official visits, send the athletes emails, texts and letters, and attend prospect tournaments or high school games.

There are also four “dead” periods that occur — Nov. 10 to 13, Dec. 3 to 7, April 13 to 16 and May 26 to June 3. During these periods, recruits are not able to visit with coaches face-to-face. However, they can visit campuses as well as receive emails, letters and calls from coaches.

The budget for softball recruiting is not as significant as it is for football or basketball. Since the budget is smaller, ISU softball coaches tend to use most of it during a specific, truncated time period.

“We start to look at and evaluate prospects during the summer,” said ISU coach Stacy Gemeinhardt-Cesler.

Coaches attend either high school playoff games during the summer or tournaments across the country nearly every weekend. Typically, the coaches go to certain national softball prospect tournaments, such as the Premier Girls Fastpitch tournaments, which often take place in Illinois or Minnesota.

The Cyclones found one of their top prospects, starting freshman outfielder Kelsey McFarland, in last year’s class at one of the national tournaments.

McFarland, who played for the Minnesota Stars ‘95 club team, was recruited when she was a sophomore in high school.

“A former Iowa State assistant saw me play at one of the tournaments with my club team,” McFarland said. “They recruited me pretty heavily, and I just fell in love with staff and the school.”

Iowa State does not only find its next stars at prospect tournaments and high school games. The program also builds pipelines — a recruiting term for relationships — with certain high schools and club teams.

An example of Iowa State building a pipeline exists in the recruitment of starting freshman third-baseman Nychole Antillon. Antillon played for the Corona Angels.

ISU coaches knew Antillon’s club coach because they recruited sophomore catcher Rachel Hartman, who played for the same squad.

During Antillon’s recruitment, Hartman committed to Iowa State during her junior year in high school — before her official visit.

“I committed without coming here first,” Antillon said. “The reason I did was because of the confidence the coaches had in me. They told me if I did not come here, I would still have a great career elsewhere and that just stuck with me.”

Building pipelines substantially helps further Iowa State’s recruiting chances considering the budgetary concerns and is an essential part of the recruiting process.

As of this moment, Iowa State’s 2015 and 2016 classes are both locked up and the coaches are now focused on finding the next Lexi Slater or Brittany Gomez with the 2017 class.