A week after the Cyclones’ first shutout, ISU goalie Erik Hudson nearly had another perfect game against Central Oklahoma, playing a perfect three periods and an overtime.

In Saturday night’s game, Hudson saved all 34 shots the Bronchos had on net. In the end, it still wasn’t enough to get the Cyclones the win.

After neither team scored in both regulation and overtime, the game came down to a shootout. ISU senior captain Brent Cornelius shot first for the Cyclones and got it over the right shoulder of the Central Oklahoma goalie. The Bronchos would answer with a goal of their own, finally getting the puck past Hudson.

Central Oklahoma would go on to win after scoring on its second try in the shootout and both Cody Steele and Jason Pacheco being denied.

“Hudson played great,” said coach Al Murdoch. “He gave us the opportunity to win, but we have to be able to score.”

Although Iowa State outshot the Bronchos on Saturday, the Cyclones were only able to salvage one goal.

“I think when you don’t score in a close game like that, it just comes down to simple puck handling,” said sophomore defenseman Brody Toigo. “It was just one of those days where the puck was bouncing all over the place and they were able to get them.”

On Friday, the Cyclones were able to hold off the Bronchos with a 4–3 victory. Senior Brian Spring scored twice, both times in the second period. The defense held the Bronchos to only 20 shots throughout the whole game, not allowing more than 10 shots per period.

With the weekend split with Central Oklahoma, the Cyclones are now 0–2 in shootouts this season and 12–4–2 overall with all six losses coming against ranked opponents. Saturday’s loss gave the Cyclones only their second home loss of the season.

“I really feel we got outworked by Central Oklahoma,” Murdoch said. “They worked really hard and won a lot of races to the puck, but if we are going to lose to a top 10-ranked team, I would rather lose in the first half of the season than the second half.”

In the series, both Iowa State and Central Oklahoma played hard, physical defense. Despite the physicality of the games, Iowa State only had two penalties called against it in Saturday’s game. Central Oklahoma proved to be a very close matchup versus the Cyclones, as expected, with both games being decided by one goal.

“I thought we played well this weekend,” Toigo said. “They are better than some teams we’ve seen that have been higher ranked than them.”

A close loss such as the one on Saturday night can be demoralizing, but the Cyclones will have to turn around quickly because they have a tough matchup with undefeated Arizona State next weekend.

“We played a hard game [Saturday], but we just fell a little short,” said freshman defenseman Justin Wilkinson. “We just have to focus on our next game and learn from what we did wrong.”