Cyclone hockey continues its long homestand this weekend, welcoming an ISU graduate, St. Louis Billikens coach John Bosch, into the Ames/ISU Ice Arena.

Coach Al Murdoch said Iowa State is going to have to play at a higher level than they have so far to compete with St. Louis.

“They are a step up from the teams we’ve played so far this season. They are a step quicker and a bit stronger,” Murdoch said.

Iowa State hasn’t played SLU since two seasons ago, so it will be a fresh challenge for some of the newer guys to the team, including sophomore forward Jordan Pascale.

“I don’t know a lot about them, but from what I’ve heard they are one of the best teams in the conference so far, so we have to be prepared,” Pascale said.

Senior forward Bill Adolph agrees the team can’t take the Billikens lightly.

“I remember in the past they have had some quality players. They’re a good team — they’re technically Division II, but they play more like a Division I team. We can’t look past them,” Adolph said.

Murdoch has had the team work on holes coming off last weekend’s sweep of Kansas, including conditioning, cycling the puck in the offensive zone, capitalizing on rebounds and winning battles for the puck against the boards.

“We definitely still need to work on our penalty kill,” Pascale said. “They scored two power play goals on us last week and as far as conditioning goes, we have some stamina, but there’s always room for improvement. It will get better as the season goes on.”

Adolph also addressed the Cyclones rebounding issues by emphasizing that they have been working on getting quality shots on net in practice and creating rebounds. He also mentioned that the team left a lot of rebounds out on the ice last weekend and needs to start capitalizing on those.

Another thing Iowa State has worked on meticulously in practice this week is their conditioning. Despite showing good speed in their series against KU, Murdoch feels the Cyclones still have work to do in that area.

“We’re not quite where we need to be as far as conditioning — we got to get in a lot better shape as we head into the middle stretch of the season and start playing some stronger teams. When we beat a team by 10 goals, then I can say we’re in good shape, but until then, we need to keep working on it,” Murdoch said.

Iowa State comes into the series on a three-game win streak including a weekend sweep of Kansas in its last match up. Junior Forward Derek Behrman comes into the series with the hottest stick, racking up two hat tricks already. Junior defenseman Brent Cornelius led the team with four assists heading into the series against KU.

Iowa State’s games against St. Louis start at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday night.