They may not have taken the easiest road, but the Penn State ACHA Division I Icers took the right one and eventually found themselves in the semifinals of the ACHA National Tournament for the 13th consecutive season.

A day after sweating out an overtime victory against No. 16-seeded Robert Morris (Pa.) in the first round, the No. 1 Icers battled through another nail-biter in the second round before ultimately dispatching the No. 8 Liberty Flames, 2-1, last night at the Ice Zone in Youngstown, Ohio.

Penn State will now meet No. 12 Delaware - the biggest surprise of the tournament - at 1 p.m. on Saturday in the first of two semifinal matchups. The second matchup will pit No. 3 Illinois against No. 10 Oakland at 4 on the same day.

The winners will then collide at 4 p.m. in Sunday's national title game.

Unlike their first and second-round opponents, the Icers are no strangers to the rival Blue Hens. The teams met each other on three separate occasions this season, with Penn State winning twice at home and once on the road.

In those three meetings, the Icers outscored the Blue Hens to the tune of 18-5.

Both teams also squared off in the opening round of last year's national tournament, which also went in favor of Penn State, 8-0.

But, despite dominating Delaware over the last two seasons, the Icers know they can't take any team lightly - especially one that has knocked off two top-five teams in back-to-back days.

"They're a very feisty team," Penn State head coach Scott Balboni said of the Blue Hens, who earned a spot in the final four with upsets of No. 5 Oklahoma on Wednesday and No. 4 Rhode Island, the defending national champion, yesterday.

"They've played real hard here at nationals," Balboni added. "They have a goalie that is playing really well, and they've come out and played feisty for the first two games they've been in."

"Feisty" was also the best way to describe the play of Liberty, which reached the second round after routing No. 9 Kent State in the first.

After surrendering two goals to the Icers, by way of junior forward Nate Obringer and sophomore forward Luke DeLorenzo, in the first 10 minutes of the second period, the Flames fought back and registered a power play tally later in the second that cut their deficit in half.

Although Liberty was unable to find the tying goal, it managed to hang with the No. 1 team in the country for the entire game, as well as impress some folks along the way.

"They had a good team. They had a real good team," Balboni said of the Flames.

As for Penn State, Balboni thought his team played well after a so-so showing on Wednesday, and gave a strong indicator of things to come this weekend.

"I thought we played very well for 60 minutes tonight. A lot of guys stepped up and made big plays," he said. "Our biggest thing is that we have to come out and play hard from the start. If we can do that, I think we can beat anybody here."