By Jared Bravard, @JaredBravard

The Division II Cyclones (4-4) took the ice for the first time since Nov. 1 on Friday night and defeated the Concordia University Wisconsin Falcons (1-3) by a score of 5-0.

“I couldn’t be more pleased with the way they played,” said Head Coach Jason Fairman. “I thought that was a dominant performance from a systems standpoint and from an effort standpoint.”

Marco Escobar opened the scoring at 10:24 in the first period as he scored his first goal in the Cardinal and Gold. During a scramble for the puck just outside the crease, Escobar poked it past Falcon goalie Dakota Delbridge. Blake Ramsey and Brandon Peterson tallied the assists.

The Cyclones took that one-goal lead into the first intermission, and they began the second period with over a minute remaining on a penalty kill.

Iowa State found its second goal of the night from Canyon Brown. Cameron Barto and Mike Siemering got the puck to Brown, who was near the blue line. Brown carried it into the left faceoff circle and fired a wrister that was deflected by a defenseman’s stick. The puck arced over Delbridge’s head and into the back of the net at 7:54.

The Cyclones scored another in the second to bring the score to 3-0. Barto kept the puck in the zone at the blue line and got it to Sam Dorfman. Jordan Hillman received a pass from Dorfman and fired a shot from the slot past Delbridge’s glove at 13:54.

Similar to the first period, Iowa State picked up a penalty within the final two minutes before the break and started the third period down a man.

The Cyclones again killed the penalty to finish two for two on the night.

“It helps build a team week in and week out when you have challenges,” Fairman said. “We got some special teams work in, and we were successful, fortunately.”

Soon after the kill, Bryan Watters scored at 2:55 for his first goal as a Cyclone. Ramsey carried the puck deep into the zone and centered it to Watters, who scored from just outside the crease.

Watters returned the favor several minutes later as he tallied an assist on a Ramsey goal. At 13:16, Ramsey recorded his third point of the game as he scored a rebound goal of an initial shot from Siemering.

“I couldn’t ask for a better effort and better execution in their first game back,” Fairman said.

Ramsey’s goal ended up being the final goal of the night. The Cyclones outshot the Falcons 58-17. Concordia killed its only penalty of the night.

Patrick Egdorf earned the shutout as he saved all 17 shots he faced. Delbridge recorded 53 saves for a save percentage of 0.914.

The Cyclones and Falcons meet again at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday in the Ames/ISU Ice Arena. A limited number of tickets will be available at the door. The game will be streamed through Stretch (link: https://portal.stretchinternet.com/isuhockey/).

“I’m hoping to duplicate it [Saturday],” Fairman said. “That was an all-around good performance.”