15:40 left in the first period.

At that point in Friday night’s game against Lindenwood, Cyclone Hockey had taken a 2-0 lead over the No. 3 team in the nation thanks to two goals in the span of 22 seconds by junior defenseman Nick Sandy and junior forward Colton Kramer.

That was also the last time the No. 10 Cyclones would score in the entire series, as Iowa State was shutout by Lindenwood for the last 55 minutes and 40 seconds of game time thanks to a combination of stout defense and bad puck-luck.

“It’s tough,” Kramer said. “We’ve been playing well ever since the break and everyone’s been rolling. We just haven’t really gotten those bounces that we need to win these close games.”

Some of that bad luck also extends beyond the bounces, as controversial calls by the referees both this weekend and against Illinois have put the Cyclones in predicaments that they were unable to overcome.

The most recent one came in Friday night’s game against Lindenwood when junior forward Aaron Azevedo took a penalty in overtime that eventually set the Lions up for a game-winning power play goal from junior Tommy Heinzman.

Cyclones’ head coach and general manager Jason Fairman took exception to the penalty, alluding to the fact that the call was weak given the situation.

“That’s not a penalty in overtime,” Fairman said. “To some degree, that takes the game out of our hands. A 4-on-3, that’s a good percentage opportunity for the team with the four.”

Fairman, however, was also quick to give praise to Lindenwood for the way that they played throughout the series, saying that the team was well-coached and made the plays to win throughout the weekend.

Still, he and Cyclones players felt that the four-game losing skid the team hasn’t come down to the team being outplayed. Rather, the team believes its played opponents evenly, and that the losses have come down to key mistakes during the game.

In Saturday’s game, that mistake came at the 9:04 mark in the first period. The Cyclones attempted to clear the puck out of their own zone, only to have it snatched from the air and put in the net by the aforementioned Heinzman.

“These are glaring errors on our part,” Fairman said. “Whether or not referees factor into it, there are situations that we’re putting ourselves in.”

Even with the mistakes and unfortunate luck, the team is taking the same approach as last weekend and looking on the bright side.

For one, defenseman Sandy said that the blue liners in particular take pride in the fact that they primarily held the No. 3 team in the country in check offensively.

Additionally, Sandy added that even with the frustration that comes with not scoring in five-straight periods, the team is primarily playing well and the morale remains high.

“We are playing good hockey, and it’s going to turn around eventually,” Sandy said. “We have a lot of belief in this room. Yeah it sucks losing back-to-back weekends, but we’re playing good hockey.”

Sandy also brought up a point that his head coach had mentioned saying that it could even be beneficial to the team to get these mistakes and tough losses out of the way now. This way, the Cyclones can learn from them by the time post season rolls around.

“At the end of the day, we’ve got our eyes on nationals,” Sandy said. “[We’ll] learn these lessons, see these bad bounces and clean those things up and have a good run.”