Iowa State returned home for a series against the Eagles of Eastern Michigan, bringing with it momentum from a strong performance against the Illinois. The Cyclones came out flat in the first period but then put together a season high seven goal second period, fueling them to a dominating victory.

It was the Eagles that gained momentum first when Ian Chronoby clanged one off the post and past Cyclone goaltender Erik Hudson, giving them a 1-0 lead with eight minutes left in the first period. Iowa State had trouble converting in the first period as they outshot the Eagles 24-4 , but went into the locker room without a goal.

“The first thing I said to them was that I’m not going to yell at them,” associate head coach Brian Wierson said. “Don’t worry about the score, I’m more worried about the fact that weren’t getting in on the forecheck, we aren’t being physical, and we’re having turnovers at center ice that we can’t afford to have against good teams like Ohio coming up.”

It took less that two minutes into the second period for the Cyclones to answer, as sophomore forward Brian Rooney put a backhander in off the rebound, evening the score at 1-1.

With 10 minutes left in the second period, the puck bounced the Cyclones way as senior forward Brian Spring got the puck from senior forward Pete Majkozak right in front of the net; Spring was able to shimmy the puck off the inside of the goaltender’s leg pads and into the net, putting the Cyclones up 2-1.

Sophomore forward Cody Steele increased the Cyclones lead to 3-1 less than a minute later.

Iowa State wasn’t done scoring in the second period as junior forward Chris Mackay put one in on a slap shot from the center of the ice just in front of the blue line, increasing the lead to 4-1 with 3:30 remaining in the second period. Mackay waited less than a minute before putting the Cyclones up 5-1. 15 seconds later, Cort Bulloch took a pass from Derek Behrman and blasted one past the goaltender, giving the Cyclones a 6-1 lead with 2:10 left in the period.

That was the Cyclones third goal in less than two minutes and all six of their goals to that point had come in the second period.

At the 1:30 mark in the second period Mike Lebler pulled out the circus moves as he deked a defender between his legs and left the puck for a streaking Majkozak, who then deposited it into the net, increasing the lead to 7-1 before heading to the break.

“We just focused on our forecheck,” Rooney said. “We worked on our forecheck all week. Coach (Ryan) Swanson really came up with a good system for us to use and it worked really well for us.”

Rebounding was another key to the Cyclones victory and another adjustment that they made after the first period.

“He (Wierson) told us that we needed to rebound the puck better,” Majkozak said. “We had plenty of shots and no rebounds. We had to get rebounds and get people in the net.”

In the third period, the Cyclones continued to haunt the Eagles dreams and stalk their nightmares as they scored early into the third period at the hands of freshman forward Derek Kohles and 13 seconds later Bulloch assisted Nick sophomore defenseman Larsen on the goal, putting the Cyclones up 9-1 and would go on to win by the score of 10-1 as Rooney added his second.

The Cyclones finished the game with 10 unanswered goals and had eight different players contribute one goal apiece.

This victory also marked the first career victory as a head coach for Brian Wierson, who took over this series in the absence of head coach Al Murdoch.

Murdoch was out of town for personal reasons.

“This isn’t the first time coach Murdoch has been gone and when he’s not here we just roll and do things the same way and we expect the guys to work hard and take care of business,” Wierson said. “It’s really no surprise to me that the guys came out and worked hard. It took us a little while to get going tonight, but we did a good job in the second. We smelled blood and we attacked.”