No matter how many more games the Penn State men's ice hockey team wins or loses this season, its No. 2 seed is locked up for the ACHA National Championship Tournament.

Even though they can't improve their tournament status, the Icers still looked to improve things this past weekend at No. 4 Ohio.

The Icers split their weekend series with the Bobcats — winning Friday's game 6-2 and losing Saturday's game in overtime 2-1.

"It was rough losing that second game," forward Bill Downey said. "But there was a lot of guys who stepped up out there who haven't played that much this season."

The Icers (22-4-2) needed some people to step up since Josh Mandel, Greg Held, Mike Blevins and Scott Curry are currently playing in the World University Games in Poland.

Alon Eizenman got the Icers on the board early in the first period, but the Bobcats responded with two power play goals to take a 2-1 lead into the first intermission.

Glenn Zuck countered for the Icers 31 seconds into the second period to knot the game at 2-2.

Ninety seconds later, Bobby Pate gave the Icers their first lead of the game at 3-2.

Eizenman then ripped a blistering slap shot past Bobcat goalie Scott Walls to extend the Icers lead to 4-2.

Then things got ugly.

With the period essentially over, Icer defenseman Curtiss Patrick held the puck in front of the Penn State bench to kill off the last few seconds.

As time expired, Ohio defenseman Jordan Cardillo charged at Patrick and laid a vicious check on him, which ignited a shoving match between the two.

Seconds later, several other players joined the fracas including Walls. Once Walls left his crease, the benches cleared and nearly every player dropped the gloves and the fists began flying.

"That's the first time we've had a bench clearing brawl since 1994," coach Joe Battista said. "We pride ourselves on the fact that we don't do that. I don't condone that kind of stuff, but sometimes it comes to the point where you have to defend yourself."

After the dust settled, five Bobcat players and three Icers were ejected.

The Icers wound up with five minutes of power play to start the third period and it wasn't long before they took advantage.

Justin DePretis knocked home a goal 55 seconds into the period and Brandon Cook finished off the scoring a minute later.

Because of a lack of players, the weekend's second game had quite an odd look.

ACHA rules state that players who get tossed out for fighting, must miss the following game. Ohio's bench was further depleted because they also have four players in Poland.

The Bobcats (17-8-5) dressed only 16 players while the Ices suited up just 20, which later diminished to 18 after Zuck and Joe McArdle left with injuries.

"They came out for the second game with that 'what do we have to lose' attitude," Battista said. "It was frustrating for us because we were dominating the game but we couldn't score."

After a scoreless first period, the Icers took a 1-0 lead after Dustin Martin one-timed a Greg Windsor pass four and a half minutes into the second stanza.

Midway through the third period, Eizenman was given a misconduct penalty for asking about a questionable icing penalty against the Icers.

Thirty seconds later, Brett Aber capitalized for the Bobcats to tie the game at 1-1.

Both teams went scoreless until Ryan Walicki netted a goal with just 50 seconds left in overtime.

"It was a frustrating end to the weekend but they were exciting games," Battista said. "Any time you win in their building, you take it. You don't win too often at their place."