One goal — less than five minutes into the game.

That’s all it would take for Cyclone Hockey to come away with a win on Friday night against No. 4 Robert Morris University, giving them their first set of consecutive wins since a series sweep of Illinois back on the weekend of Nov. 3.

The Eagles came into tonight as the highest scoring team in the Central States Collegiate Hockey League, but were shutout for the first time this season thanks to a stout Cyclones defense, along with a goalie playing with momentum carried over from last week.

“Playing in Ohio, [coach Fairman] took all the pressure off and said ‘just go out there and have fun. You have nothing to lose,'” said senior goaltender Matt Goedeke. “That gained some confidence going into this start.”

Goedeke has started plenty of games since arriving at Iowa State as a sophomore transfer back in 2015, but mostly has been relegated to a backup role this season in favor of fellow senior Derek Moser.

After Moser and the Cyclones gave up five goals in the third period against Ohio, however, it was Goedeke who got the nod in net last Saturday night. The Cyclones have won both games since he took over, with both victories coming against top five teams.

That kind of success with Goedeke in net could potentially lead to more starts in the future from the Ankeny, Iowa, native. While head coach Jason Fairman said that Goedeke “absolutely” deserved more playing time, he was non-committal to name him the starter going forward.

“We feel very capable with both our goaltenders, so we’ll see how it goes,” Fairman said.

For how well Goedeke played tonight, however, the defense in front of him more than carried their weight as well.

After the Cyclones scored the only goal of the game off of a deflection from Bryan Bandyk just 4:23 into the first period, the Eagles spent much of the game, particularly the third period, playing their typical fast style of hockey and throwing as much at the net as they could.

However, thanks to a disciplined effort that hasn’t been consistently shown from the back-end this season, the Cyclones held strong despite spending significant time in their own zone.

Both Fairman and Goedeke mentioned the team’s ability to take away rebounds and the sticks of opposing players as key factors in keeping the Eagles off the board. Additionally, with so many shots being thrown at the net, blocked shots also played just as big of a role.

“That’s how you win championships,” Fairman said. “That’s been an emphasis: what have we done well in the past that has given us success? That’s part of it, blocking shots and getting sticks.”

Making the shutout even more impressive, or even surprising, is the fact that throughout the season, the Cyclones blue line had struggled with consistency all year due to injuries and depth problems.

This made tonight’s performance from the players on the back-end even sweeter, according to junior defenseman Nick Sandy. If the last few games are any indication, the Cyclones’ defense is slowly, but surely, starting to turn a corner.

If that trend persists and the team continues to get players back, the Cyclones will have reason to be optimistic heading into the home-stretch of the season.

“We take pride in our defense,” Sandy said. “It’s finally nice to start to have a healthy back-end. Things are going in the right direction. We have a lot of belief in the room and we’re excited going forward.”