With a week to go until the Central States Collegiate Hockey League tournament, the Cyclones had one final series to tune up. Iowa State welcomed ninth ranked Minot State into Ames this weekend and came away with a split with the Beavers.

The Cyclones came out strong in Friday night’s game, scoring three goals in the first and second period going on to win 6-1. On Saturday, a slow start allowed Minot State to take an early 2-0 lead. The Beavers would take advantage of that slow start from Iowa State and win 4-3.

“It’s definitely something we need to get better on,” said senior Brad Krueger about the slow start. “It was a good reality check for us coming into the tournament.”

Despite Saturday’s loss, the Cyclones remain upbeat about their play as of late. In both games this weekend, the Iowa State defense was able to completely shut down the Beavers in the third period, holding them to less than 10 shots both nights.

“There’s not many teams in the country that would be able to shut down that team in the third period and we did it two nights in a row,” said coach Al Murdoch.

In Saturday night’s contest, Iowa State made a attempted a comeback by scoring two goals in the second period, but Minot State was able to keep pace scoring two goals of their own in the period.

In the third, the Cyclones got within one goal when senior Derek Behrman scored on the five-on-three power play. Iowa State was presented the a great opportunity with five minutes left in the game when Minot State received a five minute major penalty.

Two minutes later, the Cyclones nearly tied the game up on a play where everyone in the arena thought a goal was scored, but it was waved off due to the opposing goalie holding the puck in his glove. The game would end with the Cyclones losing 3-4.

“After beating a team 6-1, it’s kind of hard to bring it again on Saturday,” Krueger said.

Junior goalie Erik Hudson played in both games of this series as he has done a couple of times already. After allowing one goal on Friday night, Hudson finished Saturday saving 22 of 26 shots.

Both nights, Iowa State looked sharp on offense with a total of nine different players scoring in the whole series. The Cyclones shot 45 times on Saturday night, which about doubled the amount that Minot State had, but Iowa State was still unable to capitalize due to a few miscues.

In Saturday’s game, penalties became an early problem for the Cyclones. Iowa State received four penalties in the first period alone, forcing them to play a man down for a majority of the period. Murdoch said part of the reason for the slow start was due to those penalties and it will be something they work on heading towards the upcoming tournaments.

“(This series) opened our eyes to how hard we have to play,” said freshman forward David Kurbatsky. “(Saturday) we were a little slow in the first and it hurt us in the game, but we have to be able to bounce back and come to the game and play all three periods.”