How the mighty have fallen.

After winning 20 straight games en route to a perfect first half of the season, it took only two games to show the No. 1 Penn State ACHA Div. I Icers (20-2) the opposite end of the spectrum and remind them that this is indeed a new year.

A standing-room-only crowd at Ohio's Bird Arena saw the No. 7 Ohio Bobcats (15-5-1) hand Penn State its first two losses of the season, taking revenge for a 5-0 loss in last year's ACHA National Championship in front of the same crowd.

"This is a tough place to play," Penn State Icers coach Joe Battista said. "We can't panic. We need to understand it's the little things that win those big games."

After spotting Ohio a 3-0 lead, Penn State's offense finally woke up as Justin DePretis netted a power play goal with about two minutes left in the second period. The momentum seemed to swing the Icers way after Bill Downey added another goal for the Icers with just 15 seconds left in the second, bringing the score to 3-2.

The third period saw more mental errors slow Penn State. The Icers took four costly penalties, preventing them from finishing their comeback. Ohio added an empty net goal to win the game 4-2.

Saturday night saw many of the same problems that arose during Friday night's game. The first period saw both teams focus on defense and ended with a 0-0 score.

The action increased in the second period as Ohio started the scoring with a power play goal from their leading scorer Sean Gallagher. Icers forward Kevin Jaeger answered and slammed home a rebound off of a Joe Maglaque shot. But another defensive lapse gave Ohio's Hanley a breakaway on which he beat Chris Matteo, giving the Bobcats a 2-1 lead going into the third.

After giving up a third goal, Jaeger added his second to put the win back into reaching distance.

Penn State seemed to have the perfect opportunity when they were given a power play with just 1:42 left in the game.

However, a bad penalty by Penn State captain Curtiss Patrick ended their man advantage. Ohio added an empty net goal secure the weekend sweep of Penn State and win the game 4-2.

"[All the penalties] had a big affect on the games," Penn State forward Jack Weber said. "It was a lot of mental mistakes to take penalties that late in the game."

These two games showed the Icers they still have some kinks to work out if they hope to hang a fifth consecutive National Championship banner in the Greenberg Ice Pavilion.

"This team has the best individual skills players I've seen but we don't play together as a team," Patrick said. "We need to play more unselfishly."

This kind of loss is not new to the Icers. Last year they suffered similar back-to-back losses to Illinois just after break. Ironically, the Icers had also beat Illinois in the previous year's ACHA National Championship finals.

"I believe our team is a championship caliber team," Battista said. "But it has to decide whether it's willing to make the adjustments and sacrifices to become that championship team."