In their first and only meeting of the season, the Cyclones defeated the Broncos of the University of Central Oklahoma, 4-2.

This weekend, the much-improved Broncos are coming to the Ames/ISU ice arena looking for revenge against the No. 4 Cyclones.

Senior forward Bill Adolph doesn’t think the previous meeting plays much of a factor in how the teams will perform this weekend.

“I wouldn’t really call it an advantage because they have seen us once before too and every team is going to get better as the season progresses,” Adolph said.

Central Oklahoma brings a speed dynamic the Cyclones will have to counter and it fits nicely with their dump and chase style of play.

With this style, the Broncos rely on the defenseman crossing the blue line in the offensive zone and simply dumping the puck off for the forwards to go get it.

This is something that sophomore goalie Erik Hudson and his defensemen will have to prepare for.

“It’s my job as well as my defensemen’s job to break up that attack”, Hudson said. “We have to be quicker to the puck. I don’t think we’ll have any problems doing that, but we still need to make sure we’re on our toes”.

While the defensemen are in charge of breaking up that attack, the forwards are also a key part of making that task easier for the defensemen.

With the dump and chase style of play, the forwards have to get back in their zones as fast as they can in order to give the defenseman open outlets to get the puck to them.

In doing this, the Cyclones will have to rely on strong back checking or the strategy could hurt them.

Though this is an interesting technique, head coach Al Murdoch acknowledges it is risky on their part and will look at his team to take advantage of their mistakes.

“It’s very important that we are quicker to the puck,” Murdoch said. “If we are quicker to the puck than they are it’s very easy for us to catch them with two or three guys deep in their own zone, and that gives us a pretty big offensive advantage”.

Murdoch also mentioned that the Broncos could match the Cyclones in terms of experience, as they bring a roster with a lot of players with junior club hockey experience, who he describes as “pretty competitive and aggressive”.

While the Cyclones are strong believers in taking it one game at a time, some admit that it is hard not to look ahead to the series three weekends from now against the Fighting Illini of Illinois, who were No. 1 for much of the regular season, a spot now occupied by Lindenwood University.

“I think about it a lot, actually, but I have to turn it off,” Adolph said. “I’m only focused on Central Oklahoma this weekend. Right now Illinois is just a date circled on the calendar”.

Besides this weekend, Iowa State has only one series, against No. 18 Stony Brook University next weekend, before its big series at Illinois. Losing to either one of those teams would hurt the Cyclones dramatically in the rankings as the CCHL tournament and ACHA national tournament picture start to take shape.