The No. 5 ranked Cyclones hockey team are on the road for the first time this season as they face the No. 4 ranked Sooners for a two-game series Friday and Saturday, followed by a single game against the No. 8 Central Oklahoma Broncos on Oct 5.

Iowa State has already played Oklahoma this season, splitting the series 1-1 in Ames. The Cyclones lost the first game 3-1 but bounced back to a 2-1 victory in the second game.

To find more success, head coach Jason Fairman thinks the team needs to play within the system heading into the Oklahoma games this weekend.

“If guys start playing outside our systems and trying to beat their guy one-on-one and turn the puck over all the time, that’s going to be a problem for us,” Fairman said. “We picked up bad habits in the Harbin game [last weekend], and if we continue with those habits we are going to have trouble.”

The first time the Cyclones and the Sooners met this season did not go well for Iowa State.

Iowa State suffered a 3-1 loss to Oklahoma, being out-shot 39-31 for the game. The Sooners scored a goal in all three periods and looked strong throughout the game. The Cyclones looked good in the beginning, but faded as the game wore on.

“I think they are further along than we are and that’s my responsibility, so we have a lot of work in front of us,” Fairman said.

The next night Iowa State turned it around, edging out a 2-1 victory to even the series 1-1. Even though the Sooners again outshot the Cyclones 38-33, it was the strong play of goalie Matt Cooper and the Cyclone Hockey defense that played a major role in the win.

“Getting one of the two wins is a big improvement for us; we definitely didn’t want to get swept at home,” Cooper said following the win.

Scoring goals against top teams has been a problem for Iowa State, but alternate captain Trevor Lloyd and star freshman Zack Johnson look to turn it around this weekend.

“The problem of ours in the past is that we don’t score a lot of goals against good teams, so it was good for us to get a couple of goals against Harbin heading into the weekend,” Lloyd said.

Fairman is excited about Johnson and his ability to put the puck in the net.

“He has scored goals for us, which we need,” Fairman said. “We are not a high-scoring team. Sometimes you have that special guy who is a goal scorer and he seems to have that.”

Johnson leads the team in goals for the season and looks to keep up his strong play heading into Norman, Oklahoma.

“We needed to show [Harbin] that we could put the puck in the net, so I think that will help us this weekend,” Johnson said. “We know what to expect from Oklahoma now because we already played them; we got the details kicked out a little bit more.”

Cyclone Hockey travels to take on the Oklahoma Sooners this Friday and Saturday, as well as the Central Oklahoma Broncos Oct. 5. The puck drops at 7:30 p.m., 5 p.m. and 2 p.m., respectively.