Cyclone Hockey is no stranger to series sweeps, but for the first time this season, it was on the wrong end.

The Cyclones dropped a barn-burner to Robert Morris on Saturday by a score of 7-6. The seven goals were not only the most given up in a game all season by the Cyclones, but the team hadn’t even given up more than five goals in a single series this year coming into the weekend. By the end of Saturday, they had given up a total of 12 goals in two nights.

“Give Robert Morris credit, they’re a good team,” said assistant coach Mark Huber. “They never let up and they had guys driving the net all weekend.”

Saturday’s game did start out on a high note for Iowa State, as Adam Alcott got the Cyclones on the board during a scramble in front of the net just five minutes and 37 seconds into the game. This came after the team had been shut out until the third period in Friday night’s game.

The early lead was short-lived, however, as shortly after Kody Reuter went to the box for elbowing, the Eagles scored on a power-play goal by Nate Chasteen. The goal came less than two minutes after Alcott’s goal.

That’s when things started to get crazy, and when both defenses started to fall apart.

Less than four minutes after Chasteen’s equalizer, the Cyclones managed to score two goals in 23 seconds, courtesy of Aaron Azevedo and Jon Severson, to take a 3-1 lead midway through the first. The sequence was enough to chase RMU starting goaltender Cole Semchak out of the net in favor of junior backup Chris Mallon.

Once again, however, the Cyclones couldn’t sustain the lead, as they allowed the Eagles to score three unanswered goals in the final four minutes and three seconds of the first period to make the score 4-3 going into intermission.

Two of these goals came from Eagles senior forward Dan Doyle, who also got credit for a power-play goal in the period after an A.J. Gullickson penalty.

“We just weren’t finding our man in the D zone,” Reuter said. “We had issues picking up guys and getting sticks, and I think we were just scrambling around in our own D zone.”

The second period picked up where the first one left off, with another two goals coming in just the first minute and 14 seconds of the period. Right after Tony Uglem of the Cyclones tied the game up for the third time just 51 seconds into the period, Doyle completed the hat trick and regained the lead for the Eagles by making it 5-4.

The Eagles would extend that lead to 6-4 less than five minutes later thanks to a Brett Leppek goal, but the Cyclones were able to quickly get one back on Jared Erickson’s second goal of the season to make it 6-5. The game’s frantic scoring would finally come to a halt there, and the score stayed stagnant for the rest of the second period.

The Cyclones did have a golden opportunity to tie it at the beginning of the final frame after Nick Gnagni of Robert Morris got a five-minute major penalty late in the second period. Although the Cyclones couldn’t capitalize at the end of the second, they had over half of the major penalty remaining at the start of the third to try and even the score.

They couldn’t, however, and the Cyclones ultimately paid the price for it. Robert Morris ended up getting yet another power play opportunity later in the period, which resulted in Sam Turner scoring the third special teams’ goal of the night for the Eagles to make it 7-5

The power play goal from Turner ended up being the game-winner, as the Cyclones would only get one more score despite a frantic effort at the end of the game, where Iowa State had a 6-on-4 advantage by virtue of a pulled goalie and a late penalty by the Eagles.

Giving up those power-play goals wasn’t the only reason the Cyclones were swept, but it played a large role. In addition to giving up three on Saturday, Iowa State also gave up multiple power play goals the night before as well.

“When you’re sitting in the box, good teams like Robert Morris will capitalize, and they certainly did both nights,” Huber said.

Also playing a factor in both the sweep and the uncharacteristically large amount of goals given up, according to Huber, was the lack of depth on defense. The Cyclones have suffered a rash of injuries to their defense as of late, and as a result, the team didn’t dress a full roster for either game this weekend.

Even with all of the struggles and adversity, however, there were still positives to be taken away from the series. Huber said that the Cyclones responded well to the game’s momentum swings on Saturday, and that he was also pleased with the way the team’s offense bounced back after a sluggish performance the night before.

Additionally, the performance of Uglem was a bright spot throughout the weekend. The junior forward now sits at 13 goals on the season, the most on the team, after a four-goal weekend that saw him score two goals each night. After the game, Uglem credited his line mates Colton Kramer and Azevedo for doing most of the work in setting up his goals.

“Getting pucks to the net is all I really did,” Uglem said. “Nothing too tricky. I got great passes from my line mates to set me up and I was able to put them in.”

The Cyclones will now have a full week to decompress before No. 2 Minot State comes to town for a series on the weekend of Dec. 1. The series will be the first of two for Iowa State in the month of December before the fall semester ends, with the final series of the semester coming the next week against Indiana Tech.

According to both Huber and Reuter, the timing of the break is ideal for an ailing squad that hopes to use the week off as an opportunity to get players healthy and re-focused.

“I think a little time away from the arena will be good for us,” Reuter said. “And then once we get back, I think we’ll all be refreshed and ready to get back at it.”