Fresh off a series sweep last weekend, Cyclone Hockey welcomed St. Louis for game 1 of the weekend series.

Sparked by a hat trick from senior forward Mike Murtaugh, the Cyclones’ offense refused to let up, and shut out St. Louis 10-0.

Iowa State scored four goals in the first period and never looked back from there. Murtaugh scored two of his three goals in the first period, with the first coming with 7 minutes, 38 seconds remaining, and the second with 4:37 remaining. The goals were scored consecutively and gave Iowa State a 2-0 lead.

Sophomore forward Cort Bulloch added on to the lead with an unassisted goal at the 3:29 mark. Senior forward Bill Adolph capped off the first period with a goal of his own with 1:44 remaining. Adolph’s goal was a short handed goal, where Iowa State found themselves with only three players on the ice while the St. Louis had all 5.

Iowa State’s offense refused to slow down, scoring four more goals in the second period. The Cyclones’ first goal came with 17:21 remaining and would give Murtaugh his hat trick. Murtaugh said there were a couple of things that helped factor in his hat trick tonight.

“We got the puck deep [into the opponent’s territory] and Lebler and I went to the front of the net and Irwin dished to Cornelius and Cornelius passed it to me and it hit my skate and in the net it goes,” Murtaugh said.

The Cyclones would strike again with 16:09 remaining on a power play goal by junior forward Derek Behrman to increase the lead to 6-0.

Murtaugh and Adolph found junior defenseman Brent Cornelius, allowing Cornelius to score with 3:48 remaining in the period.

Iowa State would tack on another goal from sophomore forward Josh Jeske with 56 seconds remaining to extend the lead to 8-0 and close out the second period.

The third period saw the Cyclones scoring two goals, both on power plays. The first goal came from junior forward Brian Spring with 15:25 remaining. Iowa State would end its night of scoring with a goal from junior defenseman Adam Mueller with 28 seconds remaining.

The shutout was the first for the Cyclones this season. The stellar goalie play was from sophomore Eric Hudson.

After the game, coach Al Murdoch talked about this game being an indication that the team was really starting to come together as one.

“Our team is really starting to gel,” Murdoch said. “They’re starting to play well. Sure it was a great shutout for [Eric] Hudson, but the defensemen are playing better and getting better position on the opponent, and the forwards are back-checking much better and getting stronger.

Despite the strong offensive performance, the Cyclones’ hockey team knows that they can not overlook St. Louis during tomorrow’s game.

“We still have three more periods of play,” Murtaugh said. “We need to buckle down. I think the biggest problem is that we’ve won the Friday game pretty respectively the past couple times and came back on Saturday and haven’t been as productive as we were the first night. We just have to focus on that and came back tomorrow and put [St. Louis] away.”