Cyclone Hockey was back in action at the Ames Ice Arena this past weekend where they obliterated Minnesota State – Mankato two nights in a row.

Scoring 13 goals each night and holding Mankato to only eight goals for the weekend, head coach Al Murdoch said, “Everything’s coming together really well. Talent-wise, our players are about the same as Mankato, but we’re working harder; we’re practicing harder; we’re lifting weights harder: That’s making a difference, and it is showing.”

Murdoch said that after coming off of a three-game road trip, the team showed no signs of fatigue.

“Once again we had four guys with two goals [Friday] and three guys with two goals [Saturday], so that’s seven guys just short of a hat trick,” he said. “I was beginning to wonder for a while if we were going to be a defensive team only this year. Obviously we really showed that we can score a lot of goals in the last two nights.”

With the team firing on all four lines, they averaged three goals for each period.

“It was a good weekend,” ISU forward, Andrew Murdoch said.

“We got a lot of production out of all four lines, which was good. Our power play started clicking this week; we got a lot of power play goals.”

If the offense was great, the defense was just as good. On Friday night, the Cyclones gave up five goals. However, on Saturday night the team held Mankato scoreless until the final minutes.

“[Saturday’s] game, our main objective was, we wanted to keep the goals down, because five goals last night was too much,” ISU defender Tory Larson said. “We did pretty good until four minutes left in the game. We got three quick goals on us, so we’re a little upset about that.”

While the team is hard on themselves, they know that it’s not the goalie’s fault, Andrew said.

“Everybody’s doing really good right now. Our goaltending is doing really good right now; [they] had a great weekend,” he said.

Home court advantage is as real for the Cyclone hockey team as it is for any team here at Iowa State.

“Friday night, this place was packed to the rafters,” Andrew said.

Al said, that “the fans were kind of hungry to see the team get their wheels going and the wheels are rolling now.”

The Cyclones season will roll onto the road this weekend taking on Colorado State and Colorado University.

“Now we have a big road trip ahead. Four games in four days in Colorado, but it’s not too bad because it’s at the start of Thanksgiving break so the guys aren’t really missing any classes. It’s a good character builder,” Al said.