After suffering their first loss of the season last Saturday at the hands of the Oklahoma Sooners, Cyclone Hockey had their work cut out for them traveling to St. Charles, Missouri, to take on the fourth-ranked Lindenwood Lions.  Not only would the team have to respond to losing their perfect record, but also to being publicly called out by their head coach Jason Fairman as well.

While the results weren’t completely ideal, the Cyclones were able to steal a game and split the series against a top-five team and show plenty of heart and perseverance in the process.

The first game of the series was tight throughout, and it ultimately took a shootout before a winner was decided.  After a first period that featured no scoring and a dead-even shot total between the two teams, Lindenwood finally struck first when Mike Lozano put one past Cyclone goaltender Derek Moser to give the Lions a 1-0 lead with a little over 14 minutes left in the second period. Alex Carlsson and Cade Owad both tallied assists on the play.

Coming off a game in which the Cyclones only scored one goal the entire game against the Sooners, Iowa State once again struggled all game to get much going offensively, putting only 14 shots on net the entire game to Lindenwood’s 29. Despite the shot disparity, another strong performance by Moser kept the Cyclones in the game while the offense tried to create opportunities.

Late in the third period, they created a golden opportunity and the Cyclones capitalized on it. Jon Severson finally got the Cyclones on the board off a feed from Trevor Sabo to tie the game at 1-1 with 5:40 remaining. Sabo was able to deliver a nice feed to the streaking Severson in front of the net, which gave the junior forward a clean chance that he was able to convert.

After a the remainder of the third period went by without a goal, the two teams went to overtime, marking the first time this season that the Cyclones have played an overtime game.  

Moser, as per usual this season, was excellent in the extra frame and made multiple great saves to preserve the game for the Cyclones.  When the five minutes of three-on-three overtime were up, the scoreboard still read 1-1 and the teams went to a shootout to decide the game.

After both teams’ failed to score on their first attempts, A.J. Gullickson for the Cyclones and Tommy Heinzman for the Lions scored on back-to-back attempts to even the shootout at 1-1.  

With the game on the line and one goal to win the game, the Cyclones turned to their most reliable goal scorer, Tony Uglem, to get the job done.  Uglem did just that, using a quick wrist shot to put the puck past Lions goaltender Cooper Seedott and gave the Cyclones an improbable victory in game one of the series.

While the Cyclones were outplayed for most of the game, particularly in the second period where they only mustered two shots, the victory was still impressive nonetheless.  Stealing a win from a top-five team on the road is no small feat, and the Cyclones proved in game one that they could bounce back in the face of adversity and grind out a tough win.

In the second game of the series, Cyclone Hockey dropped what seemed to be a game of penalties to the Lindenwood Lions. Despite grinding out an unlikely win the night before, the Cyclones were unable to finish off the series with a sweep, as the Lions took the second game by a final score of 3-2.

The first period of the game got off to a quick start with Lindenwood striking first blood on a goal coming off of a power play from Jake Townsend, who took opportunity off of a one timer from the top left circle to put it behind Cyclones goalie Derek Moser to take the early 1-0 lead.

Despite the fact of an early goal by the Lions, both teams looked evenly matched during the game with a lot of puck movement between both zones. The first penalty of the game went to the Lions for a holding, giving the Cyclones a chance to tie, but were not able to capitalize on the man advantage to tie the game.

Even though Lindenwood held the lead through the first period, Iowa State outshot the Lions by a margin of 14-11.

The Cyclone came out strong in the beginning of the second frame, holding tight in the defensive zone to limit movement and break up any rushes by the Lions as they tried to enter the zone.

As soon as the Lions got one of their first rushes into the Cyclones zone, they were able to capitalize as Lindenwood scored again to make the score 2-0 over Iowa State.

The goal came from Lions forward Austin Wilk off of the right half wall that was then deflected off of a Cyclones player to put it past Derek Moser to extend their lead.

The Cyclones seemed to have a sense of urgency and picked things up as odd man rushes created many chances to get back in the game, but were all stopped by Lindenwood’s goalie, Cooper Seedott.

Lindenwood scored again not long later with a centering pass, deflected by Jake Townsend, his second of the game, to once again put it past Moser to make the game 3-0 in favor of the Lions. The Cyclones were outshot 16-10 in the second.

Iowa State turned things around in the third period after a goal from Anthony Song, who put the puck behind Lions goalie Cooper Seedott after a “Tic Tac Toe” play created the perfect chance to put it in the back of the net. The Cyclones put themselves back in the game when Gullickson scored to make it a one goal contest who went top shelf on Seedott with 4:58 to go.

The rest of the third was played hard, and the Cyclones came close, but ultimately ended up dropping the game to the Lions 3-2 after winning the first game in a shootout 2-1.

The puck drops next weekend in a home series against Arkansas as the Cyclones look to get back on the winning wagon after this weekend’s split series against the Lindenwood Lions. Game times are October 21 and 22 at 7:30 p.m. at the Ames/ISU Ice Arena.