Icers sweep Mountaineers into boards

They weren't pretty. They weren't memorable. But they were two wins.

The Penn State ice hockey team made its home debut this weekend as the top team in the ACHA and did its own rendition of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly as it skated its way to a two-game sweep of the West Virginia Mountaineer Ice Hounds at the ice pavilion.

On Friday night, the Icers (17-3, 14-1 ACHA) started slow but thanks in a large part to a seven-goal second period, prevailed with an 8-2 victory. Saturday night the Icers took down West Virginia again with a 9-5 victory.

In the first game, forward Todd Dakan helped the Penn State cause with two goals while forward Jeff Adams and defenseman Paul Shuttleworth each had a goal and two assists. Goalie John Sixt played an outstanding game between the pipes, letting in just one short-handed goal three minutes and 38 seconds into the third period until he was replaced by Mark Scally.

Icer forward Chris Riley, who just joined the team, opened the scoring :37 into the second period when, trying to kill an interference penalty, Ed Bursich centered a pass from behind the West Virginia goal for Riley to give Penn State a 1-0 lead.

"I was more nervous about being in front of the home crowd for the first time. I didn't know what to expect," Riley said. "A couple of shifts into the game, I got my legs underneath me and I felt fine."

In Saturday's rematch, Penn State gave up two goals within the first 8:00 of the contest to fall into an early hole but fought its way back. The Icers took the lead when defenseman Brad Hamel drove to the net on the power play and backhanded a pass to a waiting Adams in the slot for a goal, giving them a 5-4 lead. The Icers then took control of the contest en route to an ugly 9-5 victory, a game which featured a combined total of 17 penalties.

Forwards Alon Eizenman and Mike Pietrangelo and defensemen Don Coyne and Jason Zivkovic each had a goal and two assists in the winning effort. Dakan also picked up another goal to give him a weekend hat trick.

"He's had so many good scoring chances this year but couldn't put the finishing touches on them," coach Joe Battista said. "It's good to see Todd break out of a little scoring slump."

The lone bright spot of the weekend for West Virginia was forward Mike Sargo, who scored five goals, including a hat trick on Saturday.

The Icers' slow start was attributed to a lack of patience, but the players knew they would eventually get results.

"I said, 'Be patient,' " Battista said about his first intermission comments to his team. " 'They're playing three lines. We're playing four. We're going to wear them down. Just keep hitting, keep throwing the body around and we're going to slowly, but surely, wear them down.' And we did."

The Icers' injury woes continued this weekend when another defenseman went out of commission. This time it was Cameron Brown, who suffered a third-degree separation of his shoulder in Friday's win. He is not expected to return this season.

"He's a senior and he's been playing some great hockey," Battista said.

Penn State is still the top team in the ACHA, but there are some sentiments that they didn't play that way this weekend.

"This weekend, I don't think we played like (the No. 1 team)," Coyne said. "You have a bad weekend every now and then, but if you still pull of two wins, it's good."