AMES, Iowa — After a five-year reign, Iowa no longer holds the crown in the Cy-Hawk women’s basketball series.

The No. 12 Hawkeyes fell to the No. 15 Cyclones, 77-70, on Wednesday night at Hilton Coliseum in Ames. Iowa State notched its first win over Iowa since the 2016-17 season.

“It means a lot, just with all of our fans here,” Iowa State senior guard Ashley Joens said. “It was a great atmosphere. Everyone on the team contributed, and really impacted success like coach always talks about. So, it was a lot of fun and we were happy to be able to pull it out.”

In her four-year tenure as a Cyclone, Joens — who is from Iowa City and a graduate of City High School — notched her first victory over the Hawkeyes.

Iowa got into early foul trouble against Iowa State, as Hawkeye starting center Monika Czinano accumulated two fouls through the middle of the second quarter. Freshman Addison O’Grady and senior Logan Cook tallied seven and six minutes, respectively, in place of Czinano in the post.

“I have all the trust of the posts coming in,” Czinano said postgame. “But yeah, it does suck to get two or three fouls and having to come out of the game …  I know that when I go back in I have to be just as physical but just be a little bit smarter.”

Czinano picked up two more fouls in the second half, but avoided fouling out of the game. Junior guard McKenna Warnock, however, fouled out as the Hawkeyes attempted to get the ball back at the end of the contest. Guards Kate Martin and Caitlin Clark both picked up three fouls.

Overall, the Hawkeyes racked up 20 fouls compared to the Cyclones’ 12 — a statistic Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder didn’t didn’t agree with.

“I think we drew a lot of fouls that weren’t called, and that’s my opinion on it,” Bluder said. “And I feel like [Czinano] got beat up like crazy. They have 15 fouls to give with three posts and they’re willing to use them. But they have to call them to use them.” 

But Bluder stressed that the Hawkeyes can only “control the controllables,” and the referee’s calls at Hilton Coliseum were out of Iowa’s command.

Iowa only made it to the free-throw line six times on Wednesday, going 5-of-6 from the charity stripe. Iowa State, on the other hand, tallied 16 points on 22 attempts from the line.

Iowa edged Iowa State’s shooting on the court — the Hawkeyes shot 40.6 percent from the field and 33.3 percent from beyond the arc compared to the Cyclones’ 38.8 and 32.1 percent, respectively.

Free throws proved to be the deciding factor, as the Cyclones tallied 11 more points from the stripe than the Hawkeyes.

“If you don’t shoot free throws, it’s hard to win a game,” Bluder said. “We only shot six, they shot 22. I felt like we should have been shooting a lot more. That’s my opinion on it. But it’s really, you know, we have more field goals than they do, we shoot better from two, better from three, better from the free throw line. But when you give up 16 free throws to a really good basketball team, it’s hard to win.”

Iowa will return to the court following finals week with a game against University of Central Florida on Dec. 18.