Iowa State was absolutely rolling off a 12-2 victory over Iowa on Saturday night, and the Cyclones wasted no time picking up right where they left off on Sunday, scoring five goals in the first 11 minutes off goals from junior forward Mike Lebler, freshman forward David Kurbatsky, and freshman defenseman Brandon Clark.

Sophomore defenseman Nick Larsen,Lebler, junior forward Brody Toigo, and sophomore defenseman Josh Mandich also recorded assists in the first period scoring frenzy as they went to the locker room with the 5-0 lead. Goaltender Erik Hudson stopped the only two shots that came at him in the first period.

The strong first period fueled the fire that led to a 8-0 victory for the Cyclones on a 59-15 shot dominating performance.

The crowd played a big part in tonight’s win.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Kurbatsky said. “We have a really big crowd for this game and it’s really motivating to play in front of them. Hopefully we can get this big of crowd for every game and not just Iowa.”

Two of the four Hawkeye players ejected in Friday’s action received game misconduct penalties as a result of reacting to the Iowa State fan section, leaving them two more players down on its already significantly smaller roster.

Iowa State kept the momentum rolling, scoring just three minutes into the second period on a goal from Justin Wilkinson.

That put the cyclones up 6-0; halfway to their goal total from Friday night. The Hawkeyes would only get four more shots off in the second period to the Cyclones’ 20. The Hawkeye goalkeeper stopped the rest of the shots, so Iowa State took a 6-0 lead into the locker room after two periods.

The Hawkeyes nightmare wasn’t over quite yet as Chris MacKay got the puck on a breakaway and put a backhand in top shelf to increase the lead to 7-0 with 8:12 remaining in the game. Kurbatsky would add another goal to add more salt to the wound with 35 seconds left to make the final score 8-0.

Another key to Iowa State’s success came from the way they used their systems and stuck to their game plan.

“In the first period we played very physical and very aggressive,” coach Al Murdoch said. “When we went into the trap play in the second and third period, we showed that we can prevent them from getting high percentage shots.”

Hudson, who is playing shutdown hockey in the goal as of late, recorded his fourth shutout of the season and hasn’t allowed more than three goals in a game since October 10 in a loss to Lindenwood.

Despite this, Murdoch is still planning on using the two goalie system the rest of the season.

“He and Karus are both playing pretty well,” Murdoch said. “In college hockey, you play a lot and you practice a lot, so its hard to go with just one guy, but he’s playing well.”

The Cyclones have an extended break from the ice, as they won’t see any action until their road trip to Western Michigan on January 8th and 9th.

Hudson is optimistic that the rest will have a positive effect on the team.

“A break is always good to get the bodies rested up,” Hudson said. “I just hope everyone will be able to keep in good physical shape. I think it will help us more than hurt us.”