Despite 16 national championship appearances and seven ACHA national titles since 1971, the No. 3 Penn State ACHA Division I Icers never swept a season series from rival Ohio University -- until now.
After beating the No. 10 Bobcats twice at home earlier this season, the Icers traveled to Bird Arena in Athens, Ohio and again won both games in the weekend series.
"That says a lot for where we are as a team right now," senior Luke DeLorenzo said. "They're not having their best season and might not be ranked as high as they usually are, but obviously it's pretty tough for either team to get four wins against the other in one season."
Coming off an 8-0 win over Salve Regina during the break, the Icers posted their second straight shutout Friday night with a 4-0 rout behind 22 saves from senior Nick Signet.
The shutout was the 12th of Signet's career, but first this season, as sophomore Teddy Hume recorded Penn State's other two shutouts this year.
"It was just good to see the team play well," Signet said. "Everyone played the way we wanted to, we all came out playing hard and getting a shutout in the first game of the semester is a good confidence booster."
The Icers followed up their win Friday night with a 5-3 victory Saturday, despite being outshot by the Bobcats 46-25. Hume made a season-high 43 saves, improving his record this year to 9-1-0.
Assistant coach Bill Downey said although the team is getting better with its defensive coverage and play in the neutral zone, there is still plenty to work on in the second half of the season.
"It's not just scoring goals that's going to win games for us when it comes time for the national tournament," he said. "It's doing all the little things right and I think we're getting better with that stuff. There's still room for improvement in just about every area of the game, but we're getting there."
Along with taking 20 less shots than Ohio, Penn State also had just two power-play opportunities compared to Ohio's six in Saturday night's game. Friday night was very similar with Penn State playing shorthanded 11 times, while having just five power plays.
The Icers, however, held the Bobcats scoreless on all 17 power play chances and have now successfully killed off all 30 opponent power plays over the past five games.
"Lately we've had some breakdowns that caused us to take some penalties," Downey said, "so it's not the act of the penalty that bothers us, but the breakdowns that lead to us having to take the penalty that we need to work on."
Another familiarity recently for Penn State has been senior Steve Thurston scoring goals. After only scoring five goals in his first three seasons with the Icers, Thurston scored a goal in each game this weekend, giving him 10 on the season and four in the last three games.
"He's always been a guy we knew could put the puck in the net. He's trusting his shot and I think he's shooting a lot more than he did in the past," DeLorenzo said. "To have him kind of get into a little groove right now is great for us."
