On Friday, the Cyclones hockey team kicked off the first of its 9 game home stand against ACHA division rival Western Michigan.

Iowa State stopped 30 of 31 Western Michigan shots and scored three goals in the 2nd period en route to a 4-1 win.

After being held scoreless in the 1st period, Iowa State was able to strike first with a goal by sophomore forward Mike Lebeler four and a half minutes into the 2nd period. Iowa State added to its lead with a goal from junior forward Derek Behrman with 11:26 remaining. With 4:30 remaining, sophomore forward Josh Rhame scored Iowa State’s third goal of the period.

Iowa State entered the third period with a 3-0 lead. After Western Michigan was able to end the shutout with a goal of its own, Iowa State answered back with an empty net goal by freshman defenseman Brody Toigo with 5:18 remaining to clinch the victory and give the Cyclones a 4-1 win over Western Michigan.

After the game, coach Al Murdoch talked about the play of his team

“This is the midpoint of January, I don’t think we’re at the level of conditioning we should be, but we will be there,” Murdoch said. “Also, if we’re going to take 38 shots, I want us to be scoring 6 or 7 goals. We’ll get there, there’s a lot of good hockey ahead of us.”

Sophomore defenseman Brady Irwin talked after the game about the importance of winning the first game of a home stand that will span 5 weeks and 9 games total.

“Definitely you want to start on the right foot,” Irwin said. “After being on the road, our fans don’t get to see us but it feels good to score 4 goals and get the win.”

Irwin also expanded on the play of the team and agreed with Murdoch that the best is yet to come.

“We stressed discipline this week because last week [against Michigan – Dearborn] we took too many penalties,” Irwin said. “Tonight we only took 2 penalties so we’ll definitely take that. Obviously we would like to be scoring more, but sometimes the bounces don’t go our way. But as long as we win and keep them to one goal, we’ll take that.”