The Cyclones went from having no road wins on the season to suddenly having two.

Last weekend, Cyclone Hockey (6-4) traveled to Western Michigan and swept the series, winning 6-3 on Friday and 5-2 on Saturday.

“It’s a pretty good feeling for the team, especially the 13 freshmen,” said head coach Al Murdoch. “They hadn’t experienced a road win yet and I think the traditions of Cyclone Hockey are that we are a better team on the road than at home, and so we want to keep that going.”

Sophomore defenseman Brent Cornelius said the team is glad to finally get the first road win of the season but the team knows it still has work to do before the season is over.

“[Winning our first road game is] a pretty good upper,” Murdoch said. “Even though it’s only the first half of the season, we have played a lot of league games already, so every game becomes important.”

The Cyclones were able to get this important road victory by playing well in every facet of the game that they have had trouble with in the past.

“I think we came together as a team really well both on and off the ice,” Cornelius said.

Early in the season, the Cyclones had a lot of problems with their penalty killing. Last weekend, the penalty killing unit seemed to be strength of the team.

“We worked on the systems during practice all last week and the first power play they got. They didn’t get it anywhere near our zone, we were able to fend it off the whole time,” Cornelius said.

The team has also had problems staying mentally focused this season.

“When we played Lindenwood it was 4-1 at the end of the first period and we just kind of let up,” said Cornelius. “It was just lackadaisical in the locker room, people were talking about school or other stuff, and that foretold what was going to happen in the second period. We ended up going into the third period behind.

“This series [against Western Michigan] when we went into the second period, we still had a positive and energetic attitude, but we weren’t thinking too far ahead. We didn’t think it was in the bag. That showed that we had a lot of mental strength.”

Although the Cyclones have scored a fair amount of goals this season, those goals have come mostly from just one or two lines. Against Western Michigan, every Cyclone line was either even or scored more goals than they let in.

The reason for this improved offense, Cornelius feels, is that the forwards are getting good shots in the slot. He also feels that they are setting good screens for the defense to take better shots.

Although five goals in a series is still a little bit higher then the Cyclones would like it, they feel they are improving on defense as well.

“Three goals on Friday and two goals on Saturday, that’s two and a half goals against per game. We want to be at two goals per game or less,” Murdoch said. “”They are really close to it now, they just need to keep doing what they are doing, playing good solid defense.”