The Cyclones will look to continue their winning ways as they play host to Robert Morris College this weekend.

This is just the second series of a long five-week home stand and Iowa State understands the importance of this series. Robert Morris is one of two CSCHL opponents left on the schedule. Despite some of Robert Morris’ more recent struggles, coach Al Murdoch expects a hard-fought and physical game.

“Robert Morris is a good, solid up-and-coming team. They’re a little young, but then so are we,” Murdoch said. “They tend to play pretty physical. We’ve had, it seems like for several years now since they’ve been in the league, one goal games or overtime games [against Robert Morris].”

If Iowa State wants to keep its current winning streak alive, it will need to play solidly on both the offensive and defensive ends. Iowa State has allowed one or fewer goals in three of its first four games of the second half of the season and has scored at least four goals in those games.

Robert Morris, on the other hand, has not had quite the success Iowa State has seen. The Eagles have lost all but one game in the season’s second. They did hold No. 2 Lindenwood to just three goals last weekend.

Sophomore Erik Hudson understands the team cannot overlook Robert Morris, which has played very well at times this season.

“They’ve got a good goaltender,” Hudson said. “Last weekend they got beat by Lindenwood 3-0 with an empty net goal but their goalie had 59 shots on net. They’ve also got pretty good defense so it’ll be difficult to penetrate their offensive zone.”

Hudson will have his hands full trying to keep Robert Morris’ leading point man and goal scorer, forward Eriks Ozollapa out of the net. Hudson said the team is preparing for Robert Morris this week by scouting Robert Morris to get an understanding for what it will bring.

“We get reports from other teams in our division in the nation and they help us out if we help them out, so they gave us a couple of good scouting reports on Robert Morris and we’re going to prepare our systems to be most effective against them,” Hudson said.

Despite winning four straight to start the second half, the Cyclones do find themselves struck by the injury bug. Forwards Bill Adolph, Derek Behrman and Jason Pacheco have all missed time with injuries. Murdoch said he is listing them as day to day, he expects them to be “full go” on Wednesday and would like to get them in the lineup for this weekend’s series but is still uncertain.

Murdoch did list freshman forward Brody Toigo as one of the players he has been pleased with because he has stepped up and played stronger hockey in the absence of players like Adolph, Behrman and Pacheco.

“It is tough,” Toigo said, referring to the numerous team injuries. “But I think we all play pretty well together, everyone is able to step in for whatever role they need to and we’re pretty confident with each guy and it’s been working out fine so far so hopefully we’ll keep rolling with it.”