Knowing what you need to do and getting it done can be very difficult.

The Penn State Ice Lions have preached defense first all season. But for five minutes against IUP, they forgot about what they had learned all season, and it reflected in the final score.

"I told them in between periods that the team that makes defensive mistakes is going to lose the game and we were that team," Penn State coach Mo Stroemel said.

They let an IUP skater go free from the corner and it ended with a goal and a Penn State defender fell down, while skating backward and that led to another goal and basically ended the game for the Ice Lions.

The No. 3 Ice Lions finished off the regular season with a win and a loss. The loss came at the hands of No. 1 IUP, 4-3. In the final game Saturday night, the Lions went out with a bang beating Pittsburgh 6-0.

IUP was an especially bitter loss considering how well the Lions played. They held a 1-0 lead going into the third period and had doubled up on shots.

"We dominated in the first two periods," Chris Stoehr said. "We had some mental lapses in the third period. It's tough to lose a one goal game."

The Ice Lions kept scoring before the Indians, but they always managed to come back and tie the game up before taking the lead for good late in the third period. John Feltz had an opportunity to tie the game also late in the third, he had a breakaway and barely missed the net. Stroemel described the games with IUP as knockdown-drag out games, and it proved to be true. The game was filled with big and hard hits.

Defensive lapses were a concern coming out of Friday's game. The players said they need to come together as a defense before they can go far into the playoffs.

And to score more goals they need to get bodies in front of the net and get rebounds, and screen the opposing goalie.

"If we can get guys to crash the net we can get more goals," Simon Morris said. "If we can screen we'll get more too, it's hard to save a puck when you can't see it."

Pitt was a little easier task than the No. 1 ranked Indians The lineups for the game were switched up a little bit to try and get the team energized and thinking about how they need to play. Stroemel also go to experiment with different line combinations.

Morris played an outstanding game in goal, earning his second shut out in as many starts.

A slow start plagued the Ice Lions against Pitt, but they soon found their groove and scored six goals to cap the win.