For the third time this season, ISU junior goalie Erik Hudson never let a puck get by him, although on Sunday, he didn’t see many shots.

The hockey team picked up its sixth sweep of the season after beating St. Louis 5–0 on Sunday afternoon with Hudson getting the shutout.

“I played 38 games last year and it always seemed like a shutout was out of my grasp,” Hudson said. “So three in like 15 games is pretty sweet.”

A big reason why it was easy for Hudson was the play of the defense. St. Louis took a total of 10 shots on goal Sunday, all of which were blocked by Hudson.

“I didn’t really see a lot of action,” Hudson said. “My defensemen did a great job of letting me see the puck and on rebounds they did a great job of clearing it.”

On Saturday, the Cyclones allowed the Billikens to score three goals on just 17 shots. On the other hand, though, Iowa State shot 67 times and scored five times.

After the game, the team focused on fixing all of the breakdowns it had defensively. Sunday’s game proved that the Cyclones maintained the great defense they had been playing up to the Manitoba game.

“From our first unit to our last unit, our defense played solid, not letting thhem get to the net and blocking out guys in front of the net,” said junior forward Chris Mackay. “It was just huge and we really needed that.”

The Cyclones ended the series outscoring the Bilikens 10–3. Coach Al Murdoch said he was impressed with the way the whole team played in both games.

“I like the five goals we scored both nights,” Murdoch said. “Six or seven would’ve been even nicer, but we’ll take the five.”

The two wins gave the Cyclones a little bit of a confidence boost after being shut down in the previous week by the bigger and faster team in Manitoba.

Last week’s exhibition series with Manitoba allowed Iowa State to see what it needed to improve on, and the improvement came through this weekend.

“Manitoba was a lot bigger than most teams we play, so they were really physical,” Mackay said. “It seemed like this week we were a lot less timid than in the past.”

With the two wins, Iowa State moved to 15–4–3 on the season, holding on to the fifth spot in the rankings. It also gave the Cyclones back the momentum they had gathered before the Manitoba trip. Iowa State also improved to 13–2 at home.

“It was really important to get these two as a stepping stone to Iowa next week,” said senior defenseman Brent Cornelius. “We want to end on a good note this year.”