The ISU men’s hockey team headed into the American Collegiate Hockey Association Division I National Tournament as the eighth-seeded team out of 12 teams.

And when it was all said and done, the Cyclones took home an eighth-place finish.

Down 3-1, Weber State scored four straight third-period goals to defeat Iowa State 5-3 Saturday in the seventh-place game at the Ames/ISU Ice Arena.

Rob Tauer put the Cyclones on the board at 12:35 in the first period, but with 46 seconds remaining in the period, Weber State’s Eric Milliron tied the game at one all.

Tauer scored his second goal of the contest with 9:15 left in the second period from assists by Brent Popadych and David Moline. Iowa State’s Mike Moren made it 3-1 in the third period.

Weber State’s comeback trail started as Sean Baron put in a goal to make it 3-2. A minute later, T.J. Nykiel tied the game and with 4:48 left, Chris Smith scored the game-winning goal.

“We actually had them 3-1 with half a period left,” ISU head coach Al Murdoch said. “We got into a bad streak. Maybe took a few more penalties and got out of rhythm just a little bit.

I give credit to Weber State. They never gave up. Even though they were down 3-1, they got one, and then the whole momentum changes.”

An estimated 1,000 fans packed the ice arena Friday as Iowa State squared off with the four-time defending American Collegiate Hockey Association national champion Penn State Icers.

About six minutes into the first period, a power outage delayed the game for 15 minutes.

Special teams were definitely an advantage in the first period, as Penn State scored two short-handed goals only 28 seconds apart and added two power-play goals.

Moren tallied the lone Cyclone goal 28 seconds into the second period. Penn State scored five goals in the second — two off the power play — and added two more in the third period.

ISU goalkeepers Trent Baker and Nolan Thompson split time as they combined for 35 saves.

“When we gave up those two short-handed goals, it was a bad situation there,” Moren said. “We start coming back in the beginning of the second period, but we gave up another quick goal and that kind of put us down.”

On Thursday, Jason Brown scored two goals to lift the Cyclones to a 8-4 win over Towson.

Murdoch said the team is hoping to be seeded in the top four next season.

“I gave the guys the assignment of going to the championship [on Sunday], watch it and visualize themselves being there next year,” Murdoch said. “Anytime you have a winning season with the quality of play we have, we’ll take it.”

A correction to this story was printed on March 10, 2004

Due to reporting errors, the photos accompanying the March 8 story “Men’s hockey finishes eighth at tournament” were captioned incorrectly. The caption describing a fight for the puck should have identified the ISU player as Phil Hummel and the Towson player as Stefan Hull. Another photo caption said Penn State won the tournament held in Ames. Ohio won the tournament and Penn State placed second. The Daily regrets the errors.