The ice hockey club remained undefeated in the spring semester by tying Villanova 5-5 on Friday and winning 10-1 on Saturday.

The Wildcats, who entered the weekend with only three wins, came away with an overtime tie as Ty Carmichael led the way with a hat trick. But the Icers (18-3-2) dominated Saturday's game to come away with three points for the weekend.

Coach Joe Battista called Friday's game the worst game his squad has played all year.

Friday's game started out well for the Icers. Midway through the first period Penn State took a 1-0 lead on a power play when Ross Cowan poked in the rebound from Chris Cervellero's shot.

Villanova answered three minutes later when Scott Donoghue lifted the puck into the net over Penn State goalie Andy Dumas. The Wildcats took the lead with 3:12 left in the first period on Carmichael's first goal.

The Icers stormed back in the second period, scoring the next three goals. After Penn State tied the game on Dave Murphy's 17th goal of the year, Geoff Martha boomed a slap shot by 'Nova netminder Jim McCarney to give Penn State the lead, 3-2.

Seven seconds after Villanova's Steve Flynn took a roughing penalty, the Icers' Brad Russell scored his 13th goal on a rebound from Josh Brandwene's shot, and Penn State led 4-2.

Villanova retaliated with three straight goals of its own, two of them by Carmichael to take a 5-4 lead. But eight minutes into the third period, Martha scored Penn State's third power-play goal of the game and tied the score. The game remained scoreless the rest of the way and through the five-minute overtime .

"We took these guys (Villanova) seriously, we wanted to win -- the rest of the team feels and I feel that this tie is like a loss," forward Andy McLaughlin said.

"It wasn't like they were beating us five-on-five," assistant coach Ray Lombra said. "They were getting a break and they made something happen."

Battista had a closed-door meeting with the team after the game.

"He really didn't have to say too much," Martha said Saturday. "Everybody really took yesterday personally."

On Saturday, Penn State's Rich Filar scored nine seconds into the game and Murphy scored 16 seconds later as the Icers built a 4-0 first-period lead and never looked back in the 10-1 win.

The highlight of the game may have been freshman Russell's goal in the third period. On a breakaway, Russell faked out and then went around a sliding defenseman, and put the puck past McCarney. Goalie John Gray got his second assist of the year on the play.

"We played a smarter hockey game today -- that was the difference," Battista said. "We played like the team we were capable of being."

"Matt Hoffman and Mark Cervellero had such good games that it enabled the other defensemen to take some chances," said Martha, who went into the weekend with two goals but had three in two games.

Icer Notes: Brandwene had four assists over the weekend, leaving him just six points away from breaking the defenseman scoring record -- held by Battista . . . Ross Cowan, who was in a scoring slump, broke out of it with three goals and two assists in the two games; he leads the team with 47 points.