After a weekend off from play, the Iowa State women’s club hockey team is set to take the ice again against an aggressive Wisconsin-Eau Claire program.

Head coach Anthony Song describes Eau Claire as “extremely aggressive and very well structured,” and as a team who “plays a good team game.”

The Blugolds posted a 21-6-2 record in the 2018-2019 season. The Blugolds outscored their opponents 120 to 51 and averaged 4.1 goals per game last season. Additionally, the Blugolds pieced together a nine-game win streak spanning nearly an entire month in the latter part of their season.

While the Blugolds do have a good spread of members returning this season, they will be missing their leading scorer from last season, as they lose their forward Courtney Wettig to graduation. Wittig accounted for a team-high 27 goals in her senior campaign.

The Blugold’s matchup against the Cyclones will be the first game of their 2019-2020 season.

Song said he was happy with how the Cyclones have started the season.

“Our first weekend against NDSU, we were able to get a tie, which was big, since they are a top team in the league,” Song said. “Moving forward we were able to beat a D1 team [Madison].”

The Cyclones have managed to keep most of their games close so far this season. They lost 0-4 in their first game against NDSU and managed the tie in game two against the Bison. In the Cyclones’ two games against the Badgers of Wisconsin-Madison, they kept game one close but lost 3-4 and managed to take game two by a score of 3-1. The Cyclones’ scoring through their first four games has come from many different players — seven of the team’s players have scored at least one goal thus far.

Iowa State’s game plan for the Blugolds?

“Securing our defensive zone play and building offense from there,” Song said.

Song also expects his team’s power play to be “highly effective” in the effort for goals.

The puck drops Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 10 a.m. at the Hobbs Ice Arena in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.