Icers skate to victory in Nittany Lion Invitational

Saturday night, just after Western Michigan beat Buffalo 5-1 in a wild consolation game at the Nittany Lion Invitational Tournament, a member of the ice pavilion staff climbed atop a scaffold to change the team names on the scoreboard in preparation for the Penn State-Towson championship game.

He removed "W. Michigan" and replaced it with "Townson," a common spelling mistake made by those who do not attend that university. Several fans in Section-E yelled at the hired help to correct the mistake, which he promptly did, but the scars had already been formed.

Towson never seemed to have a chance as the Penn State men's ice hockey team (20-3, 17-1 ACHA) convincingly defeated the Tigers 9-2 Saturday night to win the 17th annual tournament, its 13th NLIT title overall and sixth in a row.

Penn State defenseman Jason Zivkovic took home tournament MVP honors and goalie John Sixt, defenseman Don Coyne and forwards Todd Dakan and Alon Eizenman were named to the All-Tournament team.

The scoreboard lit up early when Icer forward Mike Pietrangelo sent a pass to a waiting Tom Westfall who beat Towson goalie Vikram Gupta's glove for a 1-0 lead just 1 minute, 16 seconds into the game. The dam broke more than eight minutes later when Joe Bassett skated in alone on Gupta. His shot was stopped by the sprawling goaltender but the loose rebound was stuffed home by Chris Riley to give the Icers a 2-0 advantage which sparked a :47 stretch in which Penn State netted three goals.

The third goal of the stretch was assisted by co-captain Westfall and gave him his 100th point with the team.

"It's probably the biggest achievement, besides hopefully a shot at nationals," Westfall said. "I give (Pietrangelo) all of the credit, and Jeff Adams as well -- two guys who are seniors, and we've been here the whole time, and I owe them for everything."

"He's such a great kid," coach Joe Battista said. "He just comes to practice every day working hard. He's got a positive attitude, that's why he's a captain. I love him."

En route to Saturday night's championship game, Penn State took on a Buffalo team Friday night that it had beaten 8-2 just two weeks earlier. When Buffalo forward Larry Scott stuffed home a loose puck to tie the game at 1 just 3:50 in, the Icers got a little scare. But more than a minute later, Ryan Wick slapped a puck from the blue line to give the Icers a 2-1 lead, and that would be the last time things would be competitive.

Penn State added three more in the first, along with six in the second and four in third in the 15-1 victory and earned a spot in the championship game. The Icers outshot the Thundering Herd 71-26 in the contest, with the help of 37 shots in the second period.

Dakan and fellow forward Rob Shaner each had hat tricks in the winning effort. For Dakan, who has tallied nine goals in his last five games, it was the first of his career.

"It feels great," Dakan said. "It's been a long time coming."

The victory was bittersweet for the Icers, who lost Ed Bursich 12:19 into the first period when he was tripped up by a sliding Buffalo defender. Bursich suffered a tear in his medial collateral ligament and is expected to miss the next four to six weeks.

"It's a tough break," Battista said. "He's an athlete and doctors tend to be a little conservative, so we're hoping that we can get him back in three to four weeks."

"It's going to be a pretty big loss," Zivkovic said. "He's had a terrific season. He's a horse out there on the ice. He's worked so hard. He does a lot of little things that don't show up on the stat sheet."

After an extremely successful weekend both offensively and defensively, the Icers now hope they can take this championship and use it to create momentum going into next weekend's crucial road trip to Eastern Michigan and Michigan-Dearborn.

"I think we're going to go in there with a lot of confidence," Battista said. "We've got to go up there on a mission."