The Iowa State men’s hockey team started its road weekend series off on the right foot, or rather skate, with a victory over Kent State but came up a little short on Saturday night in its battle with Ohio University.

The Cyclones were led Friday evening by six different players garnering goals en route to an 8-3 victory.

Glenn Detulleo and Brian Paolello each scored two goals, and Mike Gilbertson, Andrew Murdoch, Mike Anderson and Jeff Smith each added a goal for the Cyclones. Nick Hinderman turned away 25 shots in front of the net.

“We’ve had some lower scoring games this year compared to last season,” Paolello said. “It’s always important to get balanced scoring, and now we are starting to get guys taking advantage of the chances they have with puck.”

The Cyclones jumped out to big lead, 5-1, after the first period and fought off the pesky Kent State team, which couldn’t manage to narrow the margin to less than 2 goals.

“We had a great team effort all around on Friday night,” said Assistant Coach Chuck Wight. “They seemed rattled in the first period, and we capitalized on the opportunities we had.”

He said the coaching staff has really been concentrating on getting the players to be opportunistic by disguising their shots and taking better quality shots when the chance arises.

“We’ve been focusing on shot selection, and this weekend, we saw the pay-off of the work we’re doing in practice,” Wight said.

Saturday’s contest went to the wire as Ohio University, ranked fourth in the ACHA, scored the go-ahead goal with around five minutes left in the third period to be the Cyclones, 3-2.

Jeremy Meyer had both of the goals for ISU while Nathan Dahlen gathered 34 saves while defending the Cyclone goal.

“We just didn’t adjust quick enough in third period,” Wight said. “Hopefully, when we see Ohio again we won’t give them as many scoring chances as we did Saturday night.”

Paolello said the youthful team is starting to get more comfortable with games on the road and is settling in to the roles each player needs to fill on the team.

“There is no doubt that Ohio is one of the best teams in the league,” he said. “We went in to their home rink and took them right down to the wire, so I think the team, especially some of the younger guys, gained some valuable experience Saturday night.”

This weekend, the Cyclones travel to Boulder to face the University of Colorado, and Coach Wight hopes to see continued improvement out of the team.

“We still need to work on the mental side of the game, how to react when we are up by a goal or down by a goal,” Wight said. “These are things that only experience in the league will bring, and we are working on that.”