When a team finds its image, it becomes very difficult to slow down the group.

The ISU women’s track and field athletes discovered their image at the Big 12 Indoor Championship on Feb. 27 and 28.

“I thought [the runners] were showing tons of toughness and tons of grit down the stretch, really giving me everything they had and that’s one of the things we stress as a program, what we want to be know for,” said ISU coach Andrea Grove-McDonough.

The first step began with the season opener, the Holiday Inn Invitational in Lincoln, Neb., where senior Kendra White took the title in the 400-meter dash and junior Alyssa Gonzalez finished third.

In the first home meet of the season, the jumpers swept the top three spots in the high jump, led by sophomore Marine Vallet, Hannah Willms and Katie Reeves. Freshman Jhoanmy Luque placed first in the triple jump, while White took the title in the 400-meter dash for the second straight meet and redshirt junior Colleen Riley finished first in the 3000-meter run.

The distance squad performed well at the Razorback Invitational, as five ISU runners ran personal bests in the 3000-meter invitational. Redshirt senior Katy Moen and graduate student Margaret Connelly led the Cyclones in the event, finishing second and fourth, respectively.

As the season progressed into the Iowa State Classic on Feb. 14, fatigue was evident in the distance runners, as many fell short of their season-best marks.

“The women didn’t have a great day. It wasn’t horrible but it was just kind of OK,” Grove-McDonough said after the Iowa State Classic. “I was certainly hoping for better performances at a meet of this caliber, but on the other hand, I think we’re just now catching our stride. “In their defense, we might have put in a little more work … I thought they would recover better off it.”

One meet led to the next and each served as stepping stone to the end team result at the conference championship, which was Iowa State’s last opportunity to compete together before the end of the 2015 indoor season.

While the experienced runners provided consistent leadership throughout the meet, the youth provided a glimpse into the team’s future. Moen and Connelly combined to score 28 of the team’s 68 points.

“It means a lot [to score 14 points] because Big 12s is all about team and scoring a lot of points, so the better I can place, the more points we score and the better our team ultimately does,” Connelly said.

Redshirt freshman Erin Hooker added eight of her own, while freshmen Evelyne Guay, Olivia Robertson, Abby Caldwell and Jhonamy Luque each contributed points. Sophomores Heidi Engelhardt and Marine Vallet added to the team’s overall count in the mile and high jump events, scoring a combined eight points.

“We have some seniors now this is their last season, so [we] really needed to see what our young kids could do,” Grove-McDonough said. “I feel good about that. We still have some great leadership up front with Crystal [Nelson] returning next year and Bethanie Brown. And these freshmen [showed] us they’re going to fill those shoes at least in the next year, no more than two I would think.”

In the process of recording double-digit personal records, Iowa State established itself as a team that grinds out each lap of each race and leaves nothing in the tank at the finish line.

Once the NCAA Indoor Championship finishes in Fayetteville, Ark., the Cyclones will attempt to carry the momentum from the end of the indoor season into the outdoor season.