Trying to leave their current struggles behind, the Cyclones hit the road for St. Charles, Mo., this weekend.

The No. 12 ISU hockey team travels for a two-game series this Saturday and Sunday against CSCHL opponent No. 10 Lindenwood. The Cyclones have lost their last three games.

Last weekend the Cyclones were swept by Oklahoma 4-3 and 3-1 and the weekend before that they lost the second game in a two-game series on the road in Indiana 4-1.

The Cyclones (9-8-1) have been on the losing end of this tightly contested series for quite some time now. The last time the Cyclones beat Lindenwood was Oct. 25, 2008, by a score of 4-3.

ISU senior forward Derek Kohles said he’s a little nervous about the games this weekend.

“We have a lot of work to do,” Kohles said. “They’re really good at changing their game up mid-game.”

Kohles has never beaten Lindenwood (5-6-2-1) in his career at Iowa State so far.

“Coming into this season, that was at the top of my list,” Kohles said. “We play Lindenwood a couple of times, we need to at least start with one win, and then after we get that one win we can work on getting the second win. We kind of know what kind of team they are, it’s going to come down to playing the entire game, no one can take any shifts off.”

ISU coach Al Murdoch has been stressing the importance of winning the first period. In their last three losses, the Cyclones failed to score a goal in the first period while giving up at least one first period goal in each game.

Murdoch said earlier in the week that he is planning on starting his “green” line, which consists of forwards Kohles, David Kurbatsky, Nate Percy and defensemen Matt Szpak and Mike Dopko. The color green refers to the color of jersey the line wears in practice.

“Green is playing the most aggressive without taking penalties,” Murdoch said. “A guy like Kohles, he’s one of our biggest, toughest, meanest guys on the team — he puts fear into every player on the opposing team.”

Despite having a .500 record and being in last place in the CSCHL, Lindenwood is still ranked in the top 10. Murdoch thinks that they are better than their record this early in the season shows.

The Cyclones play Lindenwood at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday in St. Charles, Mo.