The ISU softball team faces a road test at the University of Texas-San Antonio [UTSA] Classic.

The Cyclones are coming off of a 2-2 record at last week’s Battle at the Beach tournament. The team opened with a win, then went on to lose the next two games, but finished with a victory to end the tournament.

“It is early in the season,” said ISU coach Stacy Gemeinhardt-Cesler. “You will not have everything figured out, but it was still pretty good to get two wins.”

The Cyclones are looking for improvements during the UTSA Classic, as they allowed 13 runs in both of their losses at the Battle at the Beach.

One of the areas of improvement that the Cyclones are focusing on is driving in more runs.

“We can get them on base but not at the point to where we can score them all when we need to,” junior outfielder Brittany Gomez said. “That has been our main focus this week during practice. If we do get on base, we have to get home because we need the runs.”

Another area of improvement that coach Gemeinhardt-Cesler mentioned is resiliency.

“You won’t always play well and I think we have to be more resilient,” Gemeinhardt-Cesler said. “If things do not quite go our way, [the players] have to realize how hard they worked and that seven innings is a long time. You can overcome a lot during that time.”

The Cyclones have shown resiliency all season, coming back in four of their six wins so far this year.

Though the Cyclones do have some areas to improve on for this upcoming UTSA classic, there are some positives to take away from the Battle at the Beach.

A positive that stands out from the Battle at the Beach was overcoming consecutive defeats to end the tournament on a positive note.  

“We came back from two straight losses and we worked as a team after losing those two straight games,” said freshman pitcher Brianna Weilbacher.

The Cyclones will attempt to carry that momentum into the UTSA classic as they take on Incarnate Word, University of Texas-San Antonio and Southeastern Louisiana.

The Cyclones play Incarnate Word at 3 p.m. and University of Texas-San Antonio at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 20.

The Cyclones will finish the UTSA Classic with a 10 a.m. game Feb. 21 against Southeastern Louisiana.