The Cyclones traveled to Dearborn, Mich. this past weekend as the No. 2 seed in the Central States Collegiate Hockey League tournament, but left with a loss in the finals.

In its opening round game against Eastern Michigan, Iowa State took out the Eagles to set up a much-anticipated rematch with rival Illinois, which swept Iowa State in the teams’ recent series.

The Cyclones took advantage of the smaller ice as they avenged the sweep by eliminating the Illini 6-3 to advance to the championship game against No. 4 seed Ohio University, which beat the American Collegiate Hockey Association’s top team in Lindenwood to reach the final.

Iowa State carried a 3-1 lead into the third period, but was unable to hold the lead. The Bobcats rallied to win 4-3 in a heartbreaker for the Cyclones.

Associate head coach Brian Wierson thought the team improved on the intangibles, as he said it needed to before the tournament, but was unable to respond to the Bobcats’ effort in the third period.

“Things kind of unraveled at that point,” Wierson said. “We had done a good job of clearing pucks up until that point. One of the things I like to talk about is our team being able to respond, which we weren’t able to do on Sunday against Ohio. Other than that, I thought we did a pretty good job of it.”

Senior forward Mike Murtaugh feels that despite the loss, the team played well over the weekend.

“We outplayed every team we faced this weekend in just about every category, but we let up for five minutes and when you’re playing teams like Ohio and other teams that are going to be at nationals, you have to play all 60 minutes, and that showed,” Murtaugh said.

Although senior forward Bill Adolph admits that the team finishing second in anything where rankings are involved recently is frustrating, he was satisfied with the team’s performance this past weekend.

“Going into the tournament, we obviously wanted to win, but we can’t be too disappointed finishing second. We didn’t exceed expectations, but we didn’t come in below them either,” Adolph said.

Adolph also acknowledged that beating Illinois was the highlight of the team’s weekend. He said he felt Iowa State dominated them in every aspect of the game from start to finish.

 “We came in with the attitude that we weren’t going to take any more crap from them and we played that way from start to finish,” Adolph said.

World games update

While the Cyclones made improvements on U.S. soil, the U.S. World University Games team skated to a seventh-place finish — the highest they’ve ever placed in the 10-team competition. Cyclone hockey sent juniors Adam Mueller, Pete Majkozak and Brent Cornelius to Harbin, China to represent the team.

Head coach Al Murdoch, who served as general manager for the U.S. team while in China, talked about what the seventh-place finish meant for the team.

“It’s pretty big,” Murdoch said. “That’s world-class competition over there, but that is what we want the players of the ACHA to experience.”

Murdoch also said the players returning from the games will be a little bit faster and sharper and do things better on the ice.

Both Majkozak and Mueller described their experience playing against Russia, who beat them 8-0 and went on to place first in the competition.

“It was fun,” Mueller said. “They were really good and really fast. It was just a whole other experience. It was great getting to see [yourself] compared to some of them. The talent that they have is just unbelievable.”

Mueller also said he liked beating Slovakia 5-4 in 13 rounds of a shootout and hanging in the players’ lounge with all the talent from around the world.

“You might not be able to understand what everyone was saying, but everyone was smiling and having a good time, so you can’t complain about that,” Mueller said.

Despite the lopsided loss, Majkozak said he enjoyed the experience of playing against the world’s best team.

“Playing with Russia was an honor — you’re playing against guys who have played on the same lines as ex-NHL players, so that was fun,” Majkozak said.

“The first 10 minutes was probably the most intense period of hockey I’ve ever played in my life.”