After breaking their longest losing streak in more than a decade, the Penn State ACHA Division I Icers seemed poised to finish their home schedule out on a strong note.

That happy ending never came as the Icers (24-9-2) were thoroughly beaten by St. Clair College 8-3 in the championship game of the Nittany Lion Invitational on Saturday at the Greenberg Ice Pavilion.

The loss came after the Icers rolled over Washington & Jefferson in the tournament's first round by a score of 8-2 on Friday night.

"My father told me a long time ago, if you're going to get beat, you might as well get the crap kicked out of you," Icers head coach Joe Battista said after Saturday's loss to St. Clair. "I'm not sure that's even the case."

The Icers outshot the Saints, but couldn't convert like St. Clair did. Scoring eight goals on just 25 shots, the Saints chased two Penn State goalkeepers. Just halfway through the first period, a high shot by Erik Stone beat senior goalie Paul Mammola, putting St. Clair up 3-0. Mammola was pulled for Chris Matteo, who finished out the period and played the entire second. However with the score 6-1 in favor of St. Clair after the second, Mammola was back between the pipes for the final stanza.

Battista said since the game was in hand for the Saints at that point, he wanted to get Mammola back in, as he was a senior and to get the netminder's confidence up for the national tournament in two weeks. However, the Saints kept right on coming, with Stone scoring his second of three goals

on St. Clair's first shot of the period on a 2-on-1 opportunity.

"They wanted to win this game, this was their national championship," Battista said. "It was the last game of their season, and they wanted to win it a lot more than we did. They converted every chance they could."

Although the game was more or less decided at the start of the third, the Icers kept coming and tacked on goals from freshman Frank Berry and defenseman Craig Brooks.

"In the third period, we tried to get it together," senior assistant captain Brendan Martin said. "Just to try to get something good out of the game, take our licks and see what happens."

But the Saints always had an answer and were able to deal the Icers another blow before the Penn State team takes on Delaware in the first round of nationals.

After the Saints defeated that same Delaware team 5-1 to advance to the championship game, the Icers were able to honor their departing seniors Friday night.

They did that with an 8-2 victory, which opened the floodgates as far as scoring. They also clamped down on defense, allowing only 14 shots.

The offensive outburst, thanks to hat tricks by freshman Luke DeLorenzo and senior Justin Depretis, was courtesy of great passing by the team as a whole.

"We scored a lot of nice goals today just by moving the puck," senior captain Brett Wilson said. "It really wouldn't matter who our opponent was, if we can move the puck like that, good things are going to happen."

The confidence boost of a game for the scorers even extended to Brooks, who received a nice pass from junior Mike McMullen and registered his first goal of the season. Brooks went on to tally two goals and three assists and was named to the all-tournament team with Depretis.

While the weekend's effort remained inconsistent, the Icers will be focused on their first round game in nationals.

"We've got a week-and-a-half to decide if we want to be a championship team," Battista said. "The good news is we can have an underdog mentality -- we've earned that.

"We're certainly not the big bad bear on the street corner anymore, we're just one of the people battling for the piece of the pie and it just depends on how hungry you are."