Iowa State will be heading into the ACHA national tournament this weekend as the No. 5 seed and will play their opening round game against the Golden Flashes of Kent State who are the No. 12 seed.

The Cyclones will try to avoid exiting in the first round for the second straight year. They were upset, but an overachieving Stony Brook team in last year’s national tournament.

The winner of that game will play the winner of the No. 4 Illinois vs. No. 13 Stony Brook contest, a game in which Illinois is strongly favored.

The rest of the bracket includes No. 2 Penn State against No. 15 Canton, No. 10 Central Oklahoma vs. No. 7 Oklahoma, No. 1 Lindenwood vs. No. 16 Rutgers, No. 8 Minot State vs. No. 9 Oakland, No. 3 Ohio, vs. No. 14 Robert Morris, and No. 6 Liberty vs. No. 11 Arizona State.

Central Oklahoma is a strong No. 10 seed and could provide some surprises for the rest of the field in the national tournament.

“They don’t have a lot of big names,” sophomore forward Brian Rooney said. “They don’t have a lot of guys that played in Canada or Junior A’s like Lindenwood or Illinois, but they work really hard, they have great systems, really good coaching and they have a couple guys who know how to put the puck in the net.”

While the Broncos may fittingly be the “Dark Horse” for the tournament, it is the Central State’s powerhouses Ohio and Lindenwood that other teams may have the most trouble with.

Lindenwood, Illinois, Ohio, and Iowa State have been the teams from the Central State league that have found the most success in the national tournament in recent years.

Lindenwood is coming off a year in which they finished 42–3 and were this year’s winners of the Central States Collegiate Hockey League championship. The Lions will head into the tournament with the league’s best record at 38–5.

The Cyclones are feeling more confident heading into nationals this year.

“The main thing is we’re healthy,” junior forward Josh Rahme said. “We have five full lines here that can play and I think that will help us down the stretch.”

Kent State features a World University Games goaltender in Ryan Gregory. Iowa State was able to put four goals past him in their last contest en route to a 5–0 victory, but they can’t count on it being that easy this time around.

“We need to stick to our game plan,” Rahme said. “It’s going to take a lot of rubber to get the puck past Gregory, but I think we can do it.”

The Cyclones will hope to replicate what they did last time against the Golden Flashes, which is similar to what the Canadian national team did in their gold medal game victory over the United States and goaltender Ryan Miller.

They will attempt to shade the view of the puck from Gregory and make his attention focus on many different directions at once.

“You have to pressure him and you have to be smart with your dump-ins,” Rahme said. “If you get it too close to his skates, he’s going to burn you and outlet all the way down the ice.”

That’s not the only strategy the Cyclones plan to use.

“We play to forecheck very aggressively,” coach Al Murdoch said. “We also have to be relentless around their net, we were flat last year.

Iowa State will take its 27–11–4 record into Bensonville, Ill., on March 5–8.