For the ISU Men’s Ice Hockey Team, its lucky numbers this weekend are 30 and 31.

Cyclone Hockey heads into its 30th win with this weekend’s series against Missouri State on Friday and Saturday.

The team is using 30 wins as its benchmark of success for the season.

“We’ve had 30-win seasons, but not a lot of them in 35 years. This would be one of the unusual ones, winning 30 games, and winning it this early. It’s only the first weekend of February, and we’ve got that potential,” said coach Al Murdoch.

Although 30 may seem like an arbitrary number, every final regular season game could mean the difference between the No. 5 and No. 4 spot in the national tournament, Murdoch said.

With No. 4 University of Illinois slipping as of late, the No. 5 Cyclones now have a legitimate shot at passing Illinois in the rankings.

The team’s only chance is to sweep Illinois at home on the final weekend of the regular season.

However, before facing Illinois, they must take care of business this weekend, and add to their momentum leading up to the season finale.

The Cyclones are gaining momentum as they are now 5-0-1 in their last six games, after a road sweep of No. 19 Kent State this past weekend, 4-2 and 4-3.

The wins bring their record to 29-5-2 for the season.

In both games, the Cyclones were given a lift from unlikely Player of the Week, junior forward Rob Tauer. Tauer had a goal in both games, and raised his season total to 11.

“It’s always nice to be player of the week,” Tauer said. “I haven’t been scoring too many goals, and have been in kind of a drought. Hopefully I can keep getting some, and continue to help out the team.”

The Cyclones also got help from a defense that got in on the scoring action as well. The defense had three players score: David Moline, Matt McLin and Josh Westbrook.

“Kent State was pretty stingy in allowing forwards an opportunity to score,” Murdoch said. “It was great to have three different defensemen step up and take advantage of scoring opportunities.”

This trend of defensive players scoring is nothing new for the Cyclones, as the defense has been responsible for 21 percent of the team’s goals throughout the course of the season, along with 28 percent of assists.

Adding to this weekend’s series is a reunion of sorts between coaches. Ben Alexander, now the head coach for Missouri State, played from 1984 to 1986 for Murdoch at Iowa State.

“There’s nothing better, in some of these guys’ minds, than coaching against their old coach,” said Murdoch. “So we’ll try to send him packing with a couple more lessons for his book on hockey.”

Missouri State is a Division II school compared to the Cyclones Division I status, but are one of the best of the Division II schools with a record of 18-6-2, and are being considered for a jump to Division I next season.

The series starts 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Ames/ISU Ice Arena.