If not for the final minutes of the second period, the Icers' victories this weekend may have been a little to close for comfort.

The American Collegiate Hockey Association's No. 1 Icers (21-4-1) scored four goals in 73 seconds on Friday against No. 9 Delaware (18-4-1). Freshman Mike Pietrangelo scored the last of the string of goals en route to a 10-4 final score.

"It's a sigh of relief when we score those goals," said sophomore defenseman Eddie Kmit.

On Saturday, the Icers scored three goals in under three minutes against No. 12 West Virginia (15-10), leading to an 8-3 win. Both scoring drives of the weekend occurred in the final minutes of the second period.

Icer Coach Joe Battista said he was worried about the Icers' slow starts at the beginning of each period. But the bursts of scoring energy did not concern him.

"We start to get into a flow -- there's almost a sense of urgency," Battista said. "They must have a lot of confidence to be able to do that."

On Saturday, the Icers did not score until shortly after the halfway point when junior forward Rob Keegan centered the puck to senior linemate Cliff Graziano, who slapped it in.

Then came the Icers' second-period magic -- they scored three unanswered goals, extending their lead to 4-1. But the game was not in hand.

West Virginia came back to close the Icers' lead to 4-3. Mountaineer Coach Josh Brandwene, a former Icer defenseman, said his inside knowledge of the Icers' team strategy helped his team.

"When you go up against a hockey team of that quality and that depth, and you do as well as we did, I think we did a great job," Brandwene said. "Coming back to Penn State was everything I dreamed it would be."

But the Icers would not be beaten by Brandwene and his Moutaineers. They scored four times in response to West Virginia's comeback, closing the game.

The West Virginia game followed the similar pattern that the Delaware game did. At the end of the second period against the Blue Hens, the Icers led 8-1.

The Blue Hens came back to score three times in the third period, but two Icer goals followed their efforts.

"You get yourself so pumped up that you can't do anything. We came out like we were skating on sand," Delaware Coach Keith Collins said. "We played like shit."