On Saturday night, Penn State Icers defenseman Kyle Mills stepped onto the ice with a chance to be a hero.

The No. 2 Penn State ACHA Division I Icers (23-5-0, 21-3-0 ACHA) were in a dogfight with Duquesne (6-17-1) that had carried on all the way to a shootout, and Mills, the last shooter for Penn State, had an opportunity to win the game.

But Mills would skate back to his bench without ever firing a shot, which left the Icers with one-less chance to put the game away.

The Dukes clawed back from a two-goal deficit to beat the Icers 4-3 in a shootout only a day after being dominated, 6-0, by Penn State. But on this night, it was the way the shootout unfolded that had everyone talking.

With the shootout tied at two, Icers goalie Nick Signet stopped Duquesne's Holt Hair on the attempt, bringing up Mills.

"I heard the whistle, and I went to pick the puck up," Mills said. "Then I thought the ref was trying to signal me to stop."

Mills had barely crossed the blue line when he turned back to center ice. The head referee, who didn't see any signal from the linesman, blew the whistle, ending Mills' penalty shot attempt because he had stopped his forward progress.

"Normally when you take a penalty shot, there's no talk from any of the refs," Mills said. "Usually, they just watch you to make sure you don't turn back or anything like that. I thought he was trying to communicate to me to stop."

Confusion ensued as the referee and linesmen convened at center ice. The Penn State bench shouted at them in anger over the call, but to no avail.

According to ACHA policy, the head referee could not comment on the situation after the game.

On the next shot, Duquesne's Mike Papciak beat Signet for what would be the winning goal.

Despite being at the center of what he considered to be an unfair ruling, Mills didn't think the team played well enough for the full game to deserve a victory.

"I think we definitely have to pick up our game a little bit," he said. "We played a good team game and it got us up, but we needed to keep playing that way."

After having beaten Duquesne so handily the previous night, Penn State found itself in a much tougher matchup Saturday.

The two teams remained scoreless through the first period, but Penn State jumped in front less than a minute into the second with a goal from forward Paul Zodtner. A few minutes later, forward Nate Obringer gave the Icers a 2-0 lead.

But Duquesne would not go quietly. It climbed back into the game, pulling within one goal of Penn State on two occasions.

Trailing 3-2 in the third period, Si Bishop tied the game with a power play goal, the third score allowed on the penalty kill by Penn State.

Regulation ended in a deadlock. Neither team could break the tie during the overtime period, which sent the game to the shootout.

"We shouldn't have put ourselves in that position tonight," Balboni said. "We had a team down and we should have stepped on their throat, but we didn't do it."

On Friday night, Penn State got goals from six different players. Forwards Sean Kenney, Jason Lorenz, Tim O'Brien (who was playing his first game for the team), Steve Peck and Matt Schwartz all scored. Defenseman Andrew Magulick also added a goal.

Behind the play of goaltender Chris Matteo, the Icers notched their seventh shutout of the season. But the way that they handled the game even had Balboni surprised.

"I thought they were going to come out like that team at nationals last year that we beat 2-1," Balboni said of Duquesne. "We played a great game against them last year and only won 2-1, so I expected a little bit more [tonight]."

Balboni got what he expected, and then some on Saturday.