If the opening weekend for the Penn State Icers against Towson was comparable to the football team playing Eastern Illinois, then this past weekend was akin to playing Michigan in Ann Arbor.
The Icers went to Ohio last weekend, bringing a young squad with many new faces into a hostile arena against the No. 5 Bobcats. They left the Buckeye State with a weekend split against their arch nemesis and a sense of where the Icers are four games into the season.
"A lot of the younger guys stepped up in a big-time atmosphere," junior forward Tim O'Brien said. "Ohio is one of our top competitors and one of our biggest rivals. I think our team got a good understanding of where we stand together and how far we've come since the preseason."
Penn State had a lot of unanswered questions coming into the season, such as who could provide secondary scoring behind O'Brien and senior forward Matt Kirstein. So far, two of the freshmen forwards have stepped up to provide an offensive threat.
Dominic Morrone and George Saad are starting to become solid scoring options for the Icers after another strong weekend from the pair. Morrone scored the Icers only goal Friday night and set up Steve Thurston for the game-winning goal Saturday night. Saad assisted on Morrone's goal and scored on Saturday.
"They stepped up to play," Kirstein said. "They didn't really let the environment affect them too much and didn't let playing a highly-ranked team affect them. I thought they did pretty well."
The pair combined for two goals and two assists in the two-game series, and both have quickly climbed to the top of the team leaderboard in scoring. Morrone leads the team in goals (four) and points (six), while Saad is tied for fourth on the team in points.
The emergence of Morrone comes at a time when some of the Icers' veterans have struggled scoring goals, including O'Brien, who has one goal in four games so far.
"If some of the older guys aren't scoring, some of the younger guys need to step up," O'Brien said, "and vice versa, if the younger guys aren't scoring, we need some of our veteran guys to score."
Perhaps even more heartening for Penn State was the play of goaltender Teddy Hume. He started both games and gave the Icers a chance to win both, making 25 saves Friday and 31 saves Saturday, and might have emerged as the No. 1 goaltender.
"I thought that game [Saturday] was in my mind, his best game he's played since he's been here," assistant coach Bill Downey said. "As far as competing and giving his best on every shot, every rebound, he was doing it more on Saturday night than I've seen since I've came back and started coaching."
Penn State has two more games against top-10 competition this weekend against No. 9 West Chester. But despite the split last weekend, Kirstein took a lot from Ohio for the team to use.
"We gave ourselves a chance to win both games," Kirstein said. "I think we showed a lot of heart [last] weekend and I think we battled through some adversity, which was good to see."
