During the second period of the Division II Penn State Ice Lions game Saturday night, senior forward Adam Levine had a breakaway that seemed to be just out of reach.

The goalie dove out trying to get the puck away. With a final grasp, Levine pushed the puck away from the scrambling goalie, regained possession and buried the puck in the vacated net.

That was a perfect microcosm of the Ice Lions' 7-0 shellacking of Liberty University Saturday night. Sometimes shaky, but constantly in control.

One night after the Ice Lions disposed and dominated in an 8-4 win against NYU, Penn State closed out its regular season and entered into iits break with a solid team performance against an overmatched Liberty squad.

With some of their key players taking the night off after the NYU win, the lesser-used players stepped on to the ice. Freshman goalie Tim Howland, starting in place of incumbent Dan Koletsky, stopped everything Liberty threw at him, getting the shutout in his first start. The Ice Lions (18-3-1, 11-3-1) also received major contributions from players like freshman forward Will Brunner, whose line came up with the first two goals of the game.

As has been the case the past couple of games, the Ice Lions have been able to limit defensive chances in their zone, but sometimes the goalies can lose focus if there is nothing to get them involved early. Howland didn't seem to be bothered by it Saturday.

"It was weird, actually," he said. "Coming into the game and not getting a lot of action was a little tough, but I was excited to play and stayed in the game pretty well."

What is new is that the Ice Lions' on-again, off-again offense seems to be on again, scoring 23 goals in the season's last three games while only allowing seven.

"Really hadn't been any change, we were just kind of snakebitten the few games before that," sophomore forward Chad Uddstrom said. "Goalies [are] playing well. Like the game against UPenn; the goalie stood on his head and made 55 saves."

Head coach Pat Fung was also happy with the team's win, and he was also pleased with the recent offensive surge.

"It's been a great little surprise for me," said Fung. "We were kind of going into games thinking we were going to win 2-0, 2-1, hopefully, just not giving up too many goals. ... I don't know if we did anything different, maybe it's just that time of the season where it finally came together."

Fung said one of the things the team will work on in the next two weeks is decision-making, especially with the defensemen. He also emphasized that the recent offensive wave does not mean a change in overall team strategy.

"We want to be prepared in case the well does go dry and we're not going to change our game just because we put a couple of goals up," Fung said. "We plan on having to win close, low-scoring games."

But Saturday was all about enjoying the win. And while this season's main objective has still not been achieved, it provided a glimpse into the future of the Ice Lions, one that looks quite bright if they play more games like that.

"We have a big freshman class and we played our game," said Howland. "We were all pretty excited, and I think we went out there as a good freshman group and showed them what we got for the next years."