Icers have solid goaltender in Sixt

In hockey, a team's last line of defense is its goaltender.

Last year's ACHA All-American honorable-mention pick is on his way to another impressive season. Sixt is 14-8 with a stellar .915 save percentage and a 2.68 goals against average. His five shutouts this season have tied an Icer record. He leads the team in wins and shutouts.

It might surprise most people that Sixt has been playing goal for only the last six years. He started his ice hockey career as a forward, but one who couldn't score goals. There aren't too many spots for such a player, so he converted to defense. And that's where he stayed until the goaltender on his Squirt team disappeared.

"I don't really know what happened to him. He quit or got kicked off the team or something," Sixt said. "We only had one goaltender at the time, and he was terrible. He would go down, and you could time him getting back up by a sundial. Just horrible."

So Sixt stepped in during a practice and put on the pads.

"I didn't really do that badly with it," he said, "considering I wasn't a goalie."

So his coach asked him if he'd give it a shot. Sixt accepted. The rest is history.

"I just started to fall in love with it. The first game I played I was incredibly nervous, but the game couldn't have been any shorter," he said. "When it was over I was so disappointed because I thought that was going to be it."

But that's not how it turned out. His coach the next year, Jim Rheaume, asked him if he would back up the goaltender. Sixt played the dual role of defenseman and backup goalie.

"I was in love with the position by then," he said. "It just started to really grow on me. I could never wait for my practices as a goalie, but when I played defense I wasn't interested. And that really started to send a message to my coach."

The following year Sixt hounded his coach until the coach confronted him with an ultimatum of sorts. Either play defense or play goal. Decide now.

Sixt gladly accepted the goaltending mantle.

"It's probably one of the best moves I could have made," he said. "I have no idea what I would have done with hockey if I would have played defense."

Chances are he wouldn't have gotten this far. After all, it was his goaltending skills that brought him to Penn State.

"My first contact was with my goalie coach now, Paul Graf," Sixt said.

It was during a showcase for high school all-stars, called Hockey Night in Buffalo, where Graf, who knows a little something about the goaltending position after playing it for two years at Division I Providence, first saw Sixt play. But Sixt only faced five shots, allowed two goals and wasn't satisfied with his performance.

"I wanted to go ahead and have a second chance," Sixt said. "He came up and saw me again, and we talked for a long time and he saw me play in another mid-season showcase. Again, I faced hardly any shots. I was getting frustrated."

As time went by and his options became clearer Sixt became more and more interested in Penn State. So he applied for early admission and was accepted.

"I got accepted on December 23," Sixt said. "So it was a nice Christmas present for myself."

The January of his senior year in high school he visited the Penn State campus and practiced with the team.

"After I saw the campus and saw what the program was like, I knew that I wanted to go here," Sixt said. "Penn State was pretty much committed to me by then after the practices so it worked out well for both of us."

Penn State coach Joe Battista liked what he saw of Sixt. His quickness, his competitiveness and his focus were the major draws of the young goalkeeper.

Sixt stepped right in last season as a freshman and led the team in victories and goals against average. But his inexperience began to show in last year's national tournament, as his concentration wavered. If the team had trouble scoring goals, he would let it affect him mentally. It ended up hurting his performance.

"I tried not to be an immature freshman last year at nationals, but I felt I was an immature freshman in my loss to Iowa State (a 6-3 defeat)," Sixt said. "I know what I did wrong. I got too bogged down with what was going on in the other end. If we're having trouble scoring, I can't get frustrated with that. I have to make sure I do my job.

"I got to the point last year where I was so wrapped up with what was going on in the other end it was frustrating me more than everybody else. I took my head out of the game. I've sworn never to do that again."

The Icers entered the third period against the Cyclones down, 3-2, and Sixt allowed a goal on what Battista called a "fairly average shot."

"They caught him leaning," Battista said, "and beat him between the legs. Then they scored a fluky goal where the puck just bounced off somebody. We found ourselves going from 3-2, where we still had a chance, to 5-2 where the game was basically over."

If Sixt feels himself falling back into the same familiar trap, he quickly reminds himself of the Iowa State game. He said he will go into nationals this year with a simple and stress-free approach.

Concentration is the key to Sixt's game. It was always a concern with him. He has worked hard in the past and continues to work with team psychologist Ruben Echemendia.

"We've found a few ways that have been working for me, and I'm very happy with them," Sixt said. "I have to give a lot of credit to him. He knows his stuff. Basically it comes down to telling my mind what to do over and over again."

Sixt tries to be his toughest critic, mentally pumping himself up to reduce any mental lapses. He tries to be as hard on himself as any coach could be.

"We're all looking, I think he included, for that one performance that he is going to be able to put his name on," Battista said. "We're waiting for that ultimate performance out of him. We know it's there."

If Sixt learns from his mistakes and keeps mentally sharp during this year's postseason, he could be the goaltender leading the Icers to a national championship.

"We have as good of a chance as any," Sixt said. "It's going to come down to the hot team."

Or the hot goaltender.