The University of Central Oklahoma hockey team faces two big road games this weekend. UCO will be playing No. 5 Iowa State in Iowa Friday and Saturday night.

These two teams have met before and this series has become somewhat of a rivalry between them. Last season the Bronchos lost to Iowa State at home, but split their series on the road.

The year before that, UCO was swept by the Cyclones by a combined score of 17-7. In the first ever season for the Bronchos, the first meeting between these two teams, UCO was swept by ISU in two games by a combined score of 9-5.

UCO is 0-1 all time against ISU at home, and 1-5 all time on the road against the Cyclones. But this season, the Bronchos bring arguably their best team onto the ice and this rivalry could have new heat come Friday and Saturday night.

This will be a meeting of the top ten in ACHA Division I hockey. ISU currently has three players who have scored over 20 points on the season. Those three players are also the only ones to have scored over 10 goals so far this year.

Their leading goaltender is Erik Hudson. Hudson has started eight games, playing close to 500 minutes. Hudson has faces 218 shots, allowing just 18 goals all year. Hudson sports a 2.22 goals against average, with a 91.74 save percentage.

Iowa State is currently 11-4-1 on the season and boast the fifth ranking in Division I. The Cyclones have scored on 27 of their 87 power plays, making it a 31.03% conversion rate. They have allowed 93 goals in 106 penalty kills, which bodes well for a Broncho team that has struggled on the power play as of late.

UCO will look to get help from Shawn Steggles, Patrick Higgins, Matt Cohn, Jacob Roadhouse and Jonathan Cannizzo who all have over double digit numbers in points. They are going to need that offensive attack to keep up with an ISU team that is scoring 5.75 goals per game on average.

In goal, the go to guy is Justin Sgro. Prior to this past weekend, Sgro had played in 10 games, and over 560 minutes. He had faced 312 shots, and saved the puck 282 times. He has a 90% save percentage.

UCO comes into this matchup, 11-5 on the season, and ranked tenth in the nation. Due to their series split against Oakland it is imperative that UCO gets at least one win out of their showdown with ISU.

"We've made it now the biggest game of the semester," says team captain AJ Alfrey. "Because we dropped three out of four, one against Oakland and two against Lindenwood. Now we go into a game against a good team. They are ranked fifth in the nation. We need a win, hopefully two, but at least a split."

UCO and ISU square off Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. both notes at Iowa State.