One championship down, two to go.

Cyclone Hockey ended its regular season on a high note, sweeping a No. 3-ranked Ohio team on the road to win its league, the Central States Collegiate Hockey League.  

The Cyclones won 3-2 Friday night and 1-0 Saturday night.

Cyclone Hockey has only beaten the Bobcats once at Bird Arena in the last 10 years — in 2014. And the last time the Cyclones won the regular season CSCHL title was in 2002.

In a playoff hockey atmosphere with two sellouts, the Bobcats had all elements in their favor to come out on top.

In game one of the series, the CSCHL conference rivals both came out with high intensity and played scoreless for nearly the first 10 minutes of the opening period.

At the 9:47 mark of the period, momentum shifted in favor of Ohio when senior Joey Breslin disrupted the silence with a power-play goal after Jake Arroyo was sent to the box for high-sticking.

The Cyclones were unable to get any shots off in the first half of that first frame, and, on 16 Ohio shots, two got past Moser to give the Bobcats a strong 2-0 lead.

For the bulk of the second period, both teams exchanged scoring opportunities, but neither were able to find their way past Ohio goaltender Jimmy Thomas.

That was until Cyclone Hockey’s rookie Anthony Song took a shot from the left face-off circle that went in the far side to cut the deficit in half.

The Cyclones continued their fight into the third, when forward A.J. Gullickson got a clean feed from Trevor Sabo.

And to complete the comeback, Tony Uglem capitalized on an odd-man rush to grab the team’s third goal. 

“We wouldn’t have won on Friday if it weren’t for the play of Derek Moser,” coach Jason Fairman said. “And [he] certainly played great again [Saturday]. Derek Moser will be the player of the week, he was outstanding this weekend.”

Heading into game two, it was a must-win situation for both teams with the CSCHL regular season championship on the line.

At 4:30 in the opening frame, Jon Severson scored to give his team a 1-0 lead. That would prove essential. 

The Bobcats put up an assortment of shots, but Moser held strong in net. 

Severson’s goal was the lone one of the game, and the Cyclones returned to Ames with a new banner. 

“I’m proud of the way the guys played — to play a game that intense and come out on top,” Fairman said. “Very proud of them.”

Now, heading into the postseason play, the team will need to continue its intensity. 

“I think if we continue the intensity, games will be that type of atmosphere where you can’t make any mistakes, and if you button down in all areas of the game and we continue to play this way, I’d say we have a pretty good chance at the rest of the season here,” Fairman said.

With the Cyclones outworking the Bobcats in the 50/50 battles, playing strong in the neutral zone and minimizing the odd-man rush, Ohio had little chance to win. 

“Our work ethic was really good this weekend and we stuck to our systems,” Moser said. “Our systems worked well for us, so we showed discipline in that aspect too.”

But the weekend wouldn’t have been completed if it weren’t for the strength in net by Moser.

Moser stopped a surplus of shots in a nearly-perfect performance and bailed out his team when Ohio established convincing offensive pressure during the series.

Cyclone Hockey’s starting goalie has been a question all season long. 

Fairman felt like Moser was the guy for the job this past weekend, and his strong performance lends itself to more playing time going forward. 

“We thought he had a good week at practice,” Fairman said. “And he has played in these pressure-packed games. We were hoping that someone would establish that No. 1 position.”

The team felt no different about Moser’s performance and attributes a lot of the success to his big-time stops in net.

“He really stood on his head for us,” captain Chase Rey said. “Could’ve been different outcomes if it wasn’t for him, so I can’t say enough about how Moser played, and I think we are confident with any goalie that we put in.”

With the banner being one of the three titles the Cyclones can win this season, the road hasn’t come to an end yet.

Next week, the Cyclones will hit the road for the three-day CSCHL tournament in Bensenville, Illinois, and will take the next week to prepare for the ACHA National Tournament. 

“With the way we’ve been playing, it’s a good start, but every game we make adjustments,” Rey said. “The rest of the season is going to be like this past weekend with playoffs.”