The SDSU women’s soccer team bested Iowa State 2-1 on the Cyclones’ home field Sunday to split their weekend road swing after falling 2-1 to Saint Mary’s on Friday.

Friday’s game against the Gales was played at a neutral site in Lawrence, Kansas and head coach Lang Wedemeyer said it was a game he thought his team could win.

“They certainly are a talented team,” Wedemeyer said. “I believe that we just didn’t take advantage of some of the opportunities we had. I think we put ourselves in places to score goals and just didn’t make it happen.”

The Gales went up 1-0 on a Samantha Dion goal early in the second half, but sophomore midfielder Madison Yueill countered with her second goal of the season. After starting the season coming off the bench, Yueill has since worked her way back into a starting role.

“Madi [Yueill] really took advantage of an opportunity,” Wedemeyer said. “She’d been coming off the bench for us and Delaney Ratcliffe couldn’t play against Drake. Madi stepped into a roll that she had not played before in left back and played exceptionally well. I think it really built her confidence up. When Del[aney] came back it was natural to move Madi back into the midfield at a starting role just because as well as she had been playing.”

After 25 minutes of tied soccer Dion struck again for the game winner. Elisa Stamatakis started the game at goalkeeper for the Jacks and gave up two goals. On the other end of the field Julia McDonald made two saves while allowing one goal on her way to her fifth win of the year.

For Sunday’s game against the Cyclones, Wedemeyer replaced Stamatakis with Nicole Inskeep, a move he said he had been planning to make even before Friday’s loss.

“We went into the weekend with the plan to give them [Stamatakis and Inskeep] each a game,” Wedemeyer said. “It made sense to play Nikkie against Iowa State because she’s from Iowa and emotionally that was a big game for her. I think she was very consistent in her positioning. … We have confidence in both [Inskeep and Stamatakis] and we’ll kind of take it game by game.”

ISU struck first in the game, scoring when Koree Miller split the defense and scored on Inskeep.

Diana Potterveld countered just eight minutes later for the Jacks when she took a pass from Ashley Adams and recorded her third goal of the season.

Freshman Tori Poole then scored the game winner that bounced off the crossbar and went in for her first career goal with eight seconds left in the half.

“She’s done an exceptional job so far this season,” Wedemeyer said of Poole. “She’s played a lot of minutes for us in the midfield. She’s been a ball winner. She’s getting better and better for us every game so it was nice to see her be rewarded for that.”

Inskeep made two saves in the game on route to her second win of the season. The win bumped the Jacks back up to the .500 mark at 4-4 and marks their first road victory of the season.

“Although we still made some mistakes, we played probably our best soccer from beginning to end against a quality team,” Wedemeyer said.

The Jacks will wrap up their non-conference slate with a trip to Northern Iowa on Friday, Sept. 26.

“It’s a team that plays us tight,” Wedemeyer said. “Last year the game went to overtime. They’re very tough at home and we know they’ll come out with a lot of energy … The girls have worked very hard. They’ve played tough opponents week in and week out and a lot of it is just in preparation for the conference season, but we need to make sure we finish on a high note.”