Leading 3-1 in the second period last Friday night against Drexel, victory looked inevitable.

As the Penn State Icers skated to the locker room at the end of the period, the scoreboard read 3-3.

Like that, Drexel was back into the game.

While Penn State went on to win 6-3, it's that lack of consistency that has eluded the Icers this season.

All year long, the Icers have stressed playing a full 60 minutes of hockey, with Tim O'Brien leading the rallying cry.

In his eyes, Penn State is getting closer to finally reaching that magic number, saying the team has played about 40 minutes of strong hockey.

O'Brien said the team's biggest problem is it takes about a period off a game that makes it an uphill climb for Penn State.

The key to finding those 20 minutes lies in the Icers' mental focus, he said.

"If you're not mentally ready to play 60 minutes, then you're never going to be able to," O'Brien said. "If you get down on yourself, or if you fall down when you face any adversity, it's going to be tough to stay mentally focused for 60 straight minutes."

While the search for those elusive 20 minutes will continue this weekend against West Virginia, Penn State will try to build off what it thinks is its most consistent performance of the season.

Following that misstep against Drexel, the Icers rebounded and beat the Dragons 4-3 the following night, a victory Penn State believes didn't show any signs of the letdowns that have plagued the Icers in the past.

"We felt we didn't play as well on Friday as we did on Saturday, despite the fact the score was closer on Saturday," Paul Daley said. "Saturday night, we felt we played pretty close to 60 minutes of

hockey. We were happy with our effort."

This lack of consistency from night-to-night is something Penn State believes ties into its youth and inexperience. The Icers are a young team and know it takes time to build up the mental endurance needed to avoid lapses in concentration.

The focus has now shifted from just 60 minutes of complete hockey to a whole weekend of full hockey as Penn State heads into its matchup with the Mountaineers.

But the question of whether youth, inexperience and lack of mental focus cost Penn State any games is a complex one to answer.

Daley pointed to a couple of games that were possible candidates to support that theory. There was the season opener against Towson, a game in which a controversial call took an apparent victory away from Towson and led to a Penn State victory in overtime.

The forward also mentioned the Icers' loss to West Chester two weeks ago. In that game, Penn State scored three unanswered goals to take the lead only to give up a goal to force overtime with less than four minutes to go. The Icers lost in a shootout.

Icers coach Scott Balboni sees that as part of the growing process of his young squad.

"We still have to grow and learn as a team and as young guys," Balboni said. "We're still making those mistakes."