Junior forward Kevin Jaeger skated the puck to center ice as time was running out in the second period last Saturday with his team holding onto a slim 3-2 lead. The proper play would have been to dump the puck into Ohio's zone and head to the locker room to discuss why the No. 1 Penn State ACHA Div. I Icers had almost let a three-goal lead evaporate.

Instead, Jaeger did what he always does. He went full steam ahead.

A right-handed shooter, he switched to his backhand as he crossed the Ohio blue line to create space. Not having enough time to get fancy, he flipped a backhand high and to the glove side of Ohio's freshman goalie Ryan Baksh.

The shot glanced off Baksh's glove as he seemed surprised by the shot. It fluttered in the air like a butterfly escaping from a net catcher and proceeded to hit the ice and slide over the line with a mere ten seconds left in the period.

But don't mistake the red light that came on for something meant to denote a goal, for that was coming from the ambulance whisking Ohio off the ice. They had just been struck by a dagger.

"[The goal] was a back breaker because they had outplayed us in the second half of the second period and had completely dominated us," Penn State Icers coach Joe Battista said. "Chris Matteo kept us in it, penalty killing kept us in it and that goal by Jaeger gave us a little bit of breathing room."

So in a weekend of tight, physical checking and even less room for error, the Icers created space on the scoreboard in the second period of both games, despite admittedly being outplayed in both periods.

"We dodged a bullet, we really did. But I've said that that's the sign of a championship caliber team," Battista said. "You can make mistakes and recover from them."

Meanwhile, the mood in the other locker room was less jovial.

"It's very frustrating when you take the play to a team like Penn State on the road, you want a little more out of it than a 5-3 loss," Ohio head coach Dan Morris said.

The mistakes were plentiful in Friday's second period, as the adrenaline seemed to wear off after the rousing banner ceremony to celebrate the Icers fourth straight ACHA national championship.

The Icers got sloppy with the puck in their own end, took bad penalties, and allowed Ohio to outshoot them 12-9. But although they got outhit, outshot and outplayed, the Icers were the ones to collect two goals, including a one-timer by junior transfer defenseman Joe Maglaque off a pretty pass from senior defenseman Curtiss Patrick to make the score 4-1.

The goal proved to be the game winner in a 7-3 win.

"In the Friday night game it was Maglaque, the fourth goal was the killer goal. [Saturday] it was Jaeger," Battista said.

Jaeger's heroics came in the face of an Ohio onslaught, as they stormed back from a three-goal deficit to pull within one at 3-2. They were once again outshot, this time 15-10, and seemed to be coming unraveled, as evident by two 10-minute misconduct penalties on senior forward Jack Weber and junior forward Justin DePretis.

Though the Icers came out unscathed on Saturday, Weber said future performances like this would block the Icers path back to a fifth straight national championship.

"If we don't play three periods of hockey, we're not going to win games like we did this weekend," Weber said.

However, last weekend belonged to Jaeger and the Icers and was capped by his deadly backhand.

"Kevin [Jaeger] is a great player and when he gets a chance to score, you have to take it away from him," Morris said.

Sort of like the ambulance did to the fallen Bobcats.