Another year, another second-place finish.

For the fourth consecutive season, the Penn State ACHA Division I Icers watched another team celebrate across the ice.

The Icers are no strangers to the ACHA Championship game, having played in it 10 consecutive seasons, yet the Murdoch Cup has eluded them recently. As painful as Sunday's loss was, the team must now turn its attention to 2008.

"It's definitely in our minds," Icers forward Jaime Zimmel said of the title game loss. "But come training camp next year, it needs to be out of our minds."

No current Icer has ever tasted victory on the ultimate stage. For senior goalie Chris Matteo, that chance will never come again. For the rest, next season is only a few months away, and anything less than an eighth national championship would be demoralizing.

"We have everyone returning except for one," Icers forward Paul Zodtner said. "So next year, second won't be good enough. We can't be doing this over and over again, year in and year out.

Second place really shouldn't have been good enough this year, either. Penn State was ranked No. 1 and had run roughshod over all of its biggest rivals. It swept Rhode Island, took three of four from Ohio and compiled a 14-4 record against tournament teams. There was just too much talent there to envision an Icers' loss.

But the glass slipper fit for the Golden Grizzlies and tournament MVP Will McMahon, who took advantage of every Icers' miscue en route to a 5-1 drubbing.

Twenty of 28 Penn State players are either freshman or sophomores, and head coach Scott Balboni believes that was the primary reason the Icers faltered this season.

"We're a very young team," Balboni said. "I thought [the younger players] were nervous at the beginning of the game, and as the game went on, that showed."

The return of those young players to next year's team will add a lot of experience to the Icers' roster. And while the departure of Matteo will leave a tremendous void, goalie Nick Signet showed this year that he has the makings of a premier netminder in the ACHA.

If Signet continues to perform at a high level, Penn State will essentially put 2007's No. 1 team back on the ice, only one year better.

"Everyone's got the heart and desire," Zimmel said. "We want it."

The same could be said of the last few Icers teams, but it still never resulted in a first-place finish. Arguably, this year's biggest downfall was Penn State's inability to stay motivated against teams that it was heavily favored against.

During the regular season, it lost in shootouts to underdogs West Chester and Duquesne and eked out close victories against bottom-dwellers Niagara and Scranton. Each time, Balboni called out his team for playing down to the level of its opponents.

As parity swept over the ACHA during the tournament, that became a significant problem, as Penn State struggled the entire week despite never playing a team ranked higher than No. 8.

Though there will be even more teams with a legitimate shot at a national championship next year, none of them will be more talented than Penn State.

There will be no excuses if the Murdoch Cup isn't in Happy Valley next March.