Cyclone hockey was left stunned on Friday night after its third straight loss, going into the third period with a lead each time.

The Cyclones, No.10 in division I, split their weekend series with St. Thomas, No.10 in Division II, losing 5-4 on Friday and winning 8-1 on Saturday at the Ames/ISU Ice arena, 1505 Gateway Hills Park Drive.

On Friday the Cyclones built a 4-1 lead going into the third period before St. Thomas came storming back and ended up winning 5-4.

“After the second period, right before the third, we just kind of relaxed,” said sophomore defender Brent Cornelius. “We really just let it go. We have done that a couple times in the past this year and over time we have gotten really good at not doing that, focusing on the third and coming back and playing a strong third period. For some reason we’ve done that for the past two games … we let a two-goal lead go both Friday and Saturday, and we just let it go again this Friday.”

Cornelius said, looking back, they should have been able to see this loss coming.

“It really started with the practice on Thursday. We were all there, but we weren’t. The lights were all on but nobody was home. It was coming, we just didn’t see it; and we paid for it on Friday,” Cornelius said. “Even though we were playing a [Division] II team we still have to show up, and the whole team didn’t on Friday.”

Coach Al Murdoch, however, is not very worried about Friday’s loss. He feels the experience gained is more important than one more win. The Cyclones played all three of their goalies, nine defenders and five different forward lines over the weekend.

“Everyone who was healthy got to play this weekend,” Murdoch said. “If we had shortened our line-up we probably could have come away with two wins this weekend, but I thought getting the experience for all of our players was more important at this time, going into the Central States Tournament.”

Murdoch also made sure to give St. Thomas some credit for the win.

“The University of St. Thomas was a really good team,” Murdoch said. “They had good skaters, good defense and good goaltending.”

On Saturday the Cyclones jumped out to another lead after two periods, and this time they used the third to expand their lead, scoring three unanswered goals and winning 8-1.

“I think the effort was completely different. Everybody came to play,” Cornelius said. “We were just embarrassed on Friday night and we wanted to make that up. We had a whole better team effort there.”

With the conference tournament next weekend, Saturday’s game became important to the team to build confidence.

“[Saturday] was a huge game for us – just to build some momentum to take it to a higher level,” Murdoch said. “When it comes to the playoffs every team takes it to a higher level, and Iowa State must do the same.”