Eight Icers Earn ACHA Honors

Tommy Olczyk is a finalist for the ACHA D1 Rookie-of-the-Year award.

With a large, talented and successful freshman class last season it shouldn't come as much of a surprise, but the Icers were represented twice on the ACHA's all-rookie team in the form of goaltender P.J. Musico and forward Tommy Olczyk. Another first-year ACHA player, forward Justin Kirchhevel, was given third team ACHA All-American honors.

Olczyk was also named a finalist for the ACHA's Division 1 Rookie-of-the-Year award, along with Lindenwood's Steve Brancheau, Minot State's Michael Jordan and Oakland's Dustin Hopfner.

Olczyk, from Long Grove, IL and the son of former NHL player and coach Ed Olczyk, came to PSU from the USHL's Sioux City Musketeers this season and immediately emerged as a team leader and one of the team's best all-around players. His 24 goals led all Icers, and his four game-winners notably included an early third-period strike to help PSU to a 6-3 ACHA tournament win over Oklahoma in what turned out to be the final Icers win ever.

Musico, an athletic goaltender from Orange, CA, rotated with Matt Madrazo for most of the season, but ended with a spectacular 1.51 goals against average and 0.925 save percentage. He had a pair of shutouts, including a 17-save effort in an 8-0 win over West Virginia on January 20th. He also stopped 22 of 23 in a 5-1 win over eventual national champion Delaware on November 19th, 2011.

Kirchhevel, a Brookings, SD native who transferred from Alaska-Anchorage, was half of a dynamic tandem as one of Olczyk's linemates for most of the season. He led the Icers in assists (37) and points (56), and also impressed defensively and as a lethal penalty killer. Two of his 19 goals game in the last five minutes of the February 4th game against Oklahoma, as PSU rallied from a late 3-0 deficit to win in overtime.

Olczyk, Musico and Kirchhevel will all join Penn State's inaugural NCAA Division I team in the fall.

Additionally, forwards Dominic Morrone and Chris Cerutti, as well as defensemen Dan Petrick, Dan Loucks and Rich O'Brien were named ACHA Academic All-Americans. Academic All-Americans are required to be in their junior or senior year and have a 3.2 cumulative grade point average. O'Brien will join Olczyk, Musico and Kirchhevel as a member of the 2012-2013 Nittany Lions.

This latest batch of award winners joins Lady Icers Lindsay Reihl, Sara Chroman and Lydia Scott, who were named Academic All-Americans on the women's side on April 16th. Morrone was also named to the ACHA all-tournament second team, while senior forwards Kurt Collins and Paul Daley participated in the ACHA Division 1 All-Star Game on March 17th.

Here is the full list of the ACHA Men's Division 1 All-Americans:

The View From Everyone Else

Surely by now, you've read and laughed at (I see you, Josh Weiner) the official TYT predictions for nationals (Part I, Part II, Part III). Before we crank things up tomorrow, I wanted to highlight some of the other great work done ahead of the show.

Every tournament game will be streamed on FastHockey.com. The site requires a free account, but the usual game credit fees will be waived for all ACHA tournament games.

2012 M1 National Tournament
(achahockey.org)

Let's start with the nuts and bolts - the ACHA site's tournament page, which includes a schedule [pdf], brackets [pdf] and a link to the tournament's official site (which includes ticket and hotel information).

Icers Primer: The ACHA Tournament (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

(Black Shoe Diaries)

IcersGuy always manages to say a couple things I wish I had said, whether about already-played games or now this. His read on the Icers is spot on, and he also hedges on predictions better than me.

Tournament Thoughts
(The View From the Booth)

Steve Penstone's entry, as usual, is packed with interviews - Guy Gadowsky and Dan Loucks are in the spotlight this time around, and the Joe Battista conversation from the second intermission of the Kent State game is included as well.

Icers Take Aim at One More National Title Before Going Division I
(statecollege.com)

Twitter god Ben Jones gets insightful quotes from Gadowsky, Kurt Collins and Dan Petrick here. The Collins/Petrick angle - local guys who have a history with the Icers and State College hockey prior to their freshman years - is a previously undertapped one.

Icers should win ACHA Title
(The Daily Collegian)

A bold call from Christine Newby, but then again...

2012 ACHA Tournament Preview: Round 1 and Quarterfinals
(pennstatehockey.com)

The official site takes a look at each of the four possible Icers opponents on Saturday and Sunday.

Perspectives from other teams: Illinois // Liberty // Oakland // Ohio // Robert Morris (IL)

M: Penn State 8 vs. Duquesne 1

Collegian recap // Black Shoe Diaries recap

Official site recap // Box score

My apologies once again for having to cancel the live blog for this senior night blowout of Duquesne that pumped the Icers' record to 26-3-1 (including 18 wins in a row at home). For those who don't know, as I was packing up after watching last Saturday's Ice Lions game, I tripped over my laptop's power cord, dragging it from one of the Ice Pavilion's bench seats to the floor. The result: a cracked hard drive. Since then, all TYT updates have been done from a computer lab at the University of Akron, where I attend graduate school. I should be back up and running in the next couple of days (definitely in time to do a live blog next Friday).

In any case, TYT extends its congratulations to seniors Dan Petrick, Dan Loucks, Nick Seravalli, Kurt Collins, Chris Cerutti and Paul Daley - a group of outstanding players. As usual when the live blog doesn't go off as planned, let's defer to IcersGuy from Black Shoe Diaries (linked above) for the rest of the story.

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Much like the Mercyhurst games last weekend, the Dukes provided little in terms of a challenge for the Icers. The Icers would jump out to a quick 3-0 with goals from seniors Kurt Collins and Paul Daley, along with a goal from sophomore Bryce Johnson. The Dukes would counter with a power play goal, but George Saad would make it 4-1 after one period of play. Mike Longo, Dominic Morrone, and Chris Cerutti would add goals in the second to make it 7-1 through two periods. Cerutti would add a second goal in the third period, and the Icers would cruise to the easy 8-1 victory.

The weekend went as expected - domination from start to finish. Of the healthy senior players, only Dan Loucks was unable to get onto the scoresheet for this Senior Night (Petrick picked up 2 assists). However, Dan looked solid in his return to the ice from injury, and that's the more important piece for the night. Looking ahead, it will be interesting to see what lineup Coach Guy uses in next week's game versus Kent State. The Icers can cycle through 5-6 scoring lines and 4 defensive pairings, so there are reasons to both play and scratch any player. Guy has also sat entire lines on certain nights, but sitting a top line for two weeks might be too much rest. And at the very least, Kent State is ranked and tournament-bound (if based on the technicality that they're the host team). I'd expect players trying to return to game-speed to play, but the rest of the lineup is up in the air.

2/11 Mercyhurst Postgame: Guy Gadowsky

How do you think [Dan] Meiselman played?

Pretty good, for being back. I thought he was fine. I thought everyone put in a pretty good effort, and no complaints.

Did you feel like he was rusty?

It was a tough game to really – sometimes the hardest part of a 9-1 game is keeping a mental focus. It’s not always the best evaluation, but I thought he looked fine.

How is his head? Did he say anything to you?

He’s fine. Obviously, we would never even chance playing him if he wasn’t 100 percent cleared. The doctors – with any injury really, but especially a head injury. That’s totally up to the doctors. We don’t even touch that.

Were you a little worried when the guy came at him from behind there, with him coming off a concussion?

If he wasn’t 100 percent, he wouldn’t have played, so he’s as fine as everybody else.

Can you say something about Bryce [Johnson] getting two today, since it’s been so long since he was on the ice?

What I really liked to see is, if you saw that 2-on-1 with him and [Taylor] Holstrom, it was a beautiful play. It looked like they had a lot of synergy; I really enjoyed watching that goal. That gives you optimism for how those guys are going to perform in the future.

That whole line did pretty good today, did you think so?

Absolutely. Two goals within [12 seconds], certainly they’re an explosive group, and I thought [Michael] Longo did a good job going to the net, he scored a nice goal. They looked like they’ve been playing together for a while.

You guys are [17-0] at home now, do you see that as a source of pride now, with only two games left?

I sure do. I know the team does. These are great fans, they’re tremendous fans. I think they definitely help us at home, not only playing for them, but I think they deserve a lot of the credit for that record. They pump us up, I think they make it a very difficult place to play, and they’re a big reason for that record.

Do you know what happened to Justin Kirchhevel?

Yeah, he got slashed on the back of the leg; it’s sore. There was no use at that time, it was 6-1 I think going into the third, and it [would have been] ridiculous for him to play. In 6-1 games, you certainly hate to see things like that happen.

You said earlier in the season that it’s hard to separate the Holstrom, [Tommy] Olczyk and Kirchhevel line, what made you do that this weekend?

We want to see if you can get two really high-tempo-powered lines. [Eric] Steinour’s line, in a different way, they have great identity and they’ve been very, very effective. I think the Holstrom-Olczyk-Kirchhevel line has been very effective too, but so has Bryce Johnson. He’s been able to score with everybody. I thought if he could find some synergy with a guy like Holstrom and Kirchhevel could still have that synergy with Olczyk, then you could really have three high-powered lines, and that’s what we’re trying to do.

What made you put [Mike] McDonagh with Olczyk and Kirchhevel compared to everyone else?

There’s a couple things. One is that Olczyk and Kirchhevel seem to have a synergy together and they were both playing the wing. So we wanted someone to play the middle, and McDonagh does a great job going to the net. And when you can go to the net well, it often opens up space for the other guys. As far as centermen go, he’s probably our best going to the net and he’s been very consistent all year, so I thought that’s why he would fit well there.

For the past couple [Friday] games, you’ve made P.J. [Musico] the starter. What made that decision?

A couple of the times, it was performance. And actually a couple of times, we honestly didn’t know who we would start, and we basically had a competition on Thursday. The winner of the competition got to choose which game they started.

Was that this Thursday?

We thought through performance last weekend [against Oklahoma], we committed to starting him Friday. Two of the past weeks was because there was a competition on Thursday and the winner of the competition got to choose, so we’ve done it a couple different ways.

Have you seen [Musico] grow as a goalie over the season?

Yeah. His practice habits – he’s a California guy, and sometimes he can be perceived as a little loose out there. I understand that, but I think his practice habits have gotten a lot better and he’s working really hard at practice. And I think in that sense, he has grown.

Do you think not having a definitive starting goalie has any effect on the team?

I think it’s a positive effect right now because I know for a fact that [the team has] great confidence in both goalies. I think that’s really good to have. If you get into a situation where you have a must game and for some reason one guy gets hurt or he is not playing well, and the other guy has to come in, if your team has great confidence in both goaltenders, I think you’re ahead of the game.

Is there a specific play or anything like that you like to set up after giving up a goal? It seems like you guys are always able to answer on the next shift.

No, it isn’t. That’s basically just credit for the guys digging down and making sure that they answer, it’s not a specific set play.

Good to get one on the power play early today?

I know George [Saad] got one yesterday too on the power play. I mean, yeah, I don’t know what the final numbers were, but I thought it looked good and it’s nice to see. I thought we had good net presence today, so what we worked on, I think we accomplished that today.

What do you feel was the turning point in this game?

Whatever the third goal was. Which one was it?

Olczyk. His second goal.

Was it the one off of the very start of the second period?

Yes.

That one. I thought we were playing well, I think the shots at the end of the first were maybe 21-3, but it was a 2-0 game. And in a two-goal game, anything can happen, but I thought we were playing well. But if we relax and they come out and they get one, then it’s a totally different game. That goal with seven seconds [gone], that’s the turning point, that really solidified the direction the game was going to go.

How is Dan Loucks?

He skated a lot better on Thursday. He looked better to me on Thursday than he has in a while. I don’t know if he’ll be ready or not for Friday, I’d love to get him in another game before nationals, but we’re not going to take any chances. I thought he looked much better Thursday than he has in the past practices.

M: Penn State 6 vs. West Virginia 1

Collegian recap // Black Shoe Diaries recap

Official site recap // Box score

The Icers finished off West Virginia without a loss (this weekend or ever) Saturday afternoon. The following is from the Collegian. I'm ignoring the usual blockquote style due to length.

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No. 1 Penn State (19-3-1) completed its sweep of No. 23 West Virginia (13-14-0) with a decisive 6-1 victory Friday evening.

It was the fifth straight win for the Icers and extended the team’s home win streak this season to 13 in-a-row.

After an impressive 8-0 win Friday night, he start of the game didn’t go according to plan. West Virginia’s Tod Camara scored on the first shot of the game for either team, beating Penn State goalie Matt Madrazo on a breakaway.

From that point on the Icers were in control. Penn State scored six straight goals and outshot West Virginia 36-20.

The Icers didn’t get out of the game unscathed with senior captain Dan Loucks suffering a hip contusion during the second period. Loucks skated back to the bench under his own power, but needed assistance getting back to the locker room for the intermission.

With the Icers top scoring line of Taylor Holstrom, Justin Kirchhevel and Tommy Olczyk, getting a day off, Penn State brought a balanced attack. Different players scored all six of Penn State’s goals.

On special teams the Icers dominated their opposition, killing the only penalty they faced and scoring on all three power play opportunities. Kurt Collins, Josh Daley and Dan Petrick all scored when the Icers had the man advantage.

Loucks Named Captain

Following the Icers' 8-0 win over West Virginia Friday night, Guy Gadowsky named senior defenseman Dan Loucks the team's captain for the remainder of the season, ending a captain-free run of this year's 22 games. From the release:

"Dan is a Dean's List guy. He represents himself extremely well," said Gadowsky. "He's very quiet, but when he does speak, everybody listens and he's a guy I'd follow anywhere."

During the 2011-12 season, the Collegeville, Pa., native leads all Penn State defensemen with 16 points (4g, 12a) in 21 games.

"There's a lot of great leaders on this team. For coach to give me the 'C' means a lot to me," said Loucks. "Anytime you can be a leader and set a good example for others, it's something you want to do."

In 79 career games, the defensive stalwart has scored nine goals and added 35 assists. He has never had a plus/minus rating lower than plus-25 in either of his two full seasons.

Loucks follows Marek Polidor, 2010-2011's captain, in donning the third letter on a Penn State jersey.

M: Penn State 5 vs. Ohio 3

Collegian recap // Official site recap // Box score

(OU) Post recap // View From the Booth recap/highlights

The top-ranked Icers completed the sweep of Ohio behind an uneven but gritty effort that finally broke through OU's stellar defensive zone play in the third period. Bobcat Brett Agnew once again burned PSU on the power play in the first, and that goal held up until a wild final period that saw (among other things) a Kurt Collins hat trick which included two shorthanded goals, a penalty shot and a P.J. Musico attempt at a goal on an empty net.

Weekend Observations: Rutgers

Collegian Friday summary // Collegian Saturday summary // Collegian recap
Onward State recap // Friday VFTB highlights // Saturday VFTB highlights
Black Shoe Diaries recap // Friday team press release // Saturday team press release
Friday box score // Saturday box score

Me, last weekend:

I foresee a whole bunch of taking anything good that happens against Rutgers next weekend and guessing whether it would've happened against Rhode Island.

Given the distinct lack of big-picture meaning to these games, let's start there. Two basic ways to look at it.

1. Rutgers is a crap team who plowed an even worse conference and used the disgraceful autobid to bump poor Illinois from nationals. They weren't even ranked! I just wish the ACHA had actually followed those rankings with the seeding so they could lose by 15 to Lindenwood instead of by 10 to Davenport.
2. Rutgers isn't as bad as you say, Mr. 1. They beat West Chester worse than we did half the time and scored some goals against Rhode Island. On paper and beyond the first couple guys, they look better than the Robert Morris team that beat us a couple weeks back. And they didn't just "win" that conference, they dominated it.

As you can probably tell from the more rational tone I gave the second point of view, I still kind of lean that way in spite of the two thrashings the Icers gave them. Please don't take this to mean that I'm calling them the 2002 Red Wings, but they are on par with teams PSU has struggled with this year, yet the Icers obviously didn't this weekend.

I may or may not be schizophrenic. Depends who you ask. Mr. 1 says no, Mr. 2 says yes.

(Over)simplified way to look at it: outside of Rutgers, the Icers have played 14 games against teams ranked from 15th through 31st in the most recent poll (including six against West Chester and Pitt, who are below Rutgers). In those games, PSU is 12-2-0 and averaging 5.64 goals per game while giving up an even 3.00. Rutgers is 26th in the poll, and we averaged 9.50 goals for, 2.00 goals against. Basically, PSU beat Rutgers worse than other teams similarly rated by the coaches.

Faulty reasoning? You may think so. But either way, I'm going to feel good this week, and you should too. Let's get into the reasons why - lots of credit to go around.

In a weekend of milestones like Tim O'Brien's becoming the 15th Icer ever with 200 points and marking the last home games of him and the other seniors, it was the so-called fourth line of Chris Pronchik (1 goal, 5 assists), Joe Zitarelli (2, 4) and Mike Broccolo (2, 2) that stole the show. Picking a favorite one of their goals is a little like picking a favorite jersey, but if I have to, I'll go with 5:43 of the second Friday. After a dump-in, all three gave the Rutgers D zero room to breathe and did a great job maintaining the zone - this is an effort goal. The eventual payoff came when Zitarelli won a battle behind the net with three Scarlet Knights converging, got the puck to Pronchik out front, who quickly moved it to all-alone Broccolo.

It feels like crediting the bottom six has become kind of a cliche in my write-ups, but hey, the shoe fits. Whatever problems may exist with the team, forward depth is not one of them. I thought the other half of the bottom six (Taylor Cera, Nick Seravalli and George Saad) had a pretty good, although overshadowed, weekend themselves.

Another possible cliche: saying nice things about the Carey Bell-Brian Dolan defense pairing, although I'm going to go about it a little differently this time. Rutgers' first goal Friday was not a shining moment for either of them. Bell got caught on a bad pinch, and Dolan, back by himself, fell trying to defend goal scorer John Beatrice. But each of them dusted themselves off like champs, and in fact, each had the chance to double their season goal output after that. Dolan's in particular was a beauty, because it came less than a period later and involved him driving the net, which of course involves a degree of risk assessment if you're a defenseman. Nicely done.

Speaking of defensemen, a nod to Dan Loucks is in order. The power play was 3-for-11 on the weekend (hey, we've done worse about other bad PK units), and he was a big reason why. I like the way he managed the point, and he seems to have a pretty heavy shot that he keeps low.

Chris Cerutti had a great weekend including a hat trick Friday, and doesn't get a mention until now. Ouch. He and his centerman (O'Brien) will obviously go a long way in deciding how the Icers fare next weekend.

Finally, how about senior goaltenders Teddy Hume and John Jay? Both were great in their likely last starts at Penn State. You can play the "easy win" card if you want, but it would mean that you didn't watch Jay's save with about 8:57 left in the first period Friday, or Hume's with 1:46 left in the first and 4:27 left in the third Saturday. Hume showed the form that got him to third on the all-time Icers wins list, and Jay made you wonder why he didn't get more of a look this year with some of the goaltending uncertainty.

Actually, that's not finally. Finally is once again offering my sincerest thank you to Steve and Barb Penstone for their work on the UStream broadcasts, as Saturday's was this season's last. Believe me, I've often considered the alternate reality where they don't exist. I probably don't even start TYT without the ability to watch the games, and I probably get frustrated and quit with a poor production (or one you have to pay for - twice if you need to re-watch it). Even if I do give it a go under those circumstances, it wouldn't be nearly as good, for obvious reasons. Great work this season, hope to say hi in Delaware!

Weekend Observations: Rhode Island

Collegian Friday summary // Collegian Saturday summary // Collegian weekend recap // Onward State weekend recap // Friday VFTB highlights // Friday box score // Saturday box score

Right off the top, I think you have to give the entire team all the credit in the world for scaling the mountain that was in front of them circa January 9th. Then, Ohio had just finished pasting the Icers at Bird Arena in a pair of games during which Penn State looked - no other way to put it - completely awful, and not at all like a team that wanted or deserved to go to the ACHA national tournament. Now, the outlook is pretty close to the opposite of that - six wins in the eight games since then, including 2-1-1 in the last two weekends against two of the ACHA's best teams, a lot of that coming without some key personnel.

There are some doses of reality to go around - URI was gashed worse than we were by the World University Games and we were generally outplayed (badly at times) over the last four games, for starters - but this, on balance, has to be a positive weekend. The Icers are now two home games against a bad Robert Morris team from a trip to nationals, and we've shown that we're at least more capable of competing at a high level than we looked one month ago.

A lot of that positivity comes from the way unheralded players have filled in effectively. It's almost become boring at this point with the way it's happened with such regularity. The latest example is freshman Andrew Duval, in the lineup because of an injury to Michael Longo, himself a guy that had been effective in a larger role. Duval followed in the underclassman hero footsteps of Mike Broccolo last week and Mike McDonagh the week before by scoring the winning goal Friday. On that one, George Saad did a tremendous job keeping the play alive in the corner. The puck ended up on Rich O'Brien's stick, and he had a shooting lane, largely because of Saad's drawing the coverage in. O'Brien's blast pinballed off a man and a heads-up Duval found the loose puck and buried the decider, which also happened to be his first at Penn State.

How good have McDonagh, Broccolo and Duval been? Well, let's put it this way: McDonagh made our power play not suck (which takes some doing), at least temporarily, on Saturday when he and Marek Polidor crashed on Dan Loucks point shot, and the captain allowed the freshman to do the honors. He added two assists in that game as well as one on Friday, and has generally looked fantastic playing on a top line with Dom Morrone and Paul Daley.

Taking out Robert Morris, who can't brush their teeth without giving up five goals in the process, the Icers are just 4-of-34 (11.8 percent) with the man advantage in 2011. It's definitely a concern, keeping in mind that in close-to-the-vest tournament hockey, special teams are vital. However, I'm willing to see how it looks in possible rematches with both Rhode Island and Delaware at ESCHLs in a couple weeks with Tim O'Brien once again manning the point and Eric Steinour giving us size down low. Their absence might have been felt there more than anywhere else.


O'Brien had as many PPGs in his last three WUG games as the Icers combined had in their last four. Photo: Shane Bufano


Speaking of the ESCHL, apparently Saturday's shootout loss eliminated the Icers from ESCHL regular season title contention and clinched said title for the Rams. I have to admit that I have a hard time caring all that much. Other than the guaranteed scheduling (which is huge, I understand that) and unless you need an autobid, conferences are completely pointless in ACHA Division 1. Maybe it's a product of my coming up during the independent years, but nationals are the one and only season measuring stick to me. I've heard stories about the wars in the old ICHL, a conference where winning the tournament was important enough to actually decline a nationals bid. However, this is not that, and I think most who have seen both will agree with me.

Getting back to the games, I've been hard on the defense at times. So to be fair, I'm going to list some of the great plays they made during a crucial early penalty kill of Joe Zitarelli's checking from behind major in Friday's game. Any time there's a five-minute power play, there's one certainty: either way, a momentum swing is coming. These guys helped make sure that swing went PSU's way, and the payoff was the game's first goal 3:24 after it ended. Times given from this point are time remaining in the period (the penalty ran from 13:04 through 8:04).

• 12:37 - A Loucks interception leads to the first zone clear of the kill and an offensive faceoff. Thanks to some nice forechecking by Nick Seravalli and Chris Pronchik, URI doesn't re-gain the zone for 39 seconds.
• 11:44 - Dan Petrick wins a battle in the corner and gets the puck to Pronchik for another clear.
• 11:33 - A Rich O'Brien poke check allows another clear, and another 28 seconds wasted.
• 10:34 - Brian Dolan deflects Robert Beggi's follow-up chance on a wide-open net out of play.
• 9:52 - Loucks chips the puck off a stick and out of play - a neutral zone faceoff.
• 8:25 - Carey Bell blocks a point-blank Jaryd Coleman attempt, again with only a gaping net in front of the shot otherwise.

Not bad, eh? I like how it involves almost every d-man who dressed too.

Another guy of whom I was critical last week - Morrone, and yes, he still deserved it - offered much in the way of redemption this week as well, as he was the only Penn Stater with multiple goals on the weekend. He opened the scoring Friday after that five-minute PK. The goal started when McDonagh won a battle on the boards and got the puck to Petrick, whose nifty pass sprung Morrone. The sophomore from Sewell, NJ then used Daley as a decoy on the 2-on-1 and beat Andrew Marks cleanly. Then with 4:18 left in regulation on Saturday and Penn State trailing by one, Daley got the puck down ice, where Morrone was one-on-one. No. 19 simply wanted the puck more than URI defenseman Brandon Pinheiro. A prone Pinheiro, loser of the puck battle, could then only watch as Morrone put Paul Kenny's jock in the rafters, as Jeremy Roenick once put it.

While the shootout didn't go the Icers' way, the fact that it came to that means that PSU, for all intents and purposes, "won" alumni weekend. And regardless of who Rhody was missing, that's nothing to brush aside.

Next up: Robert Morris (yes, again). But you're excused if you breathe a sigh of relief first.

Weekend Observations: West Chester

Collegian weekend recap // Friday box score // Saturday box score

Old West Chester? New West Chester? No matter, same result.

Harsh? Maybe. But the opponent I saw this weekend, while improved, didn't really appear to have taken the quantum leap forward that I had expected. I was sweating these games a little, in all sincerity, especially with our suddenly-questionable depth at forward and the consequences of dropping one of them in mind. As of right now, it's a tough call to determine whether that win over Rhode Island was due to URI playing down to their opponent as they've been known to do, or something larger, like WCU improvement.

Just about the only thing that qualified as adversity over the weekend came on Saturday midway through the second period. With Penn State up 1-0 and on a 5-on-3 advantage looking for more, Dan Loucks tried to force a shot though a man and then had to take a penalty to prevent a breakaway the other way. Once the WCU penalties ended, the Golden Rams' Chris Gentile, one of their bevy of new additions this semester, quickly tied the game at 1 on the ensuing power play. However, the Icers got the goal back just 29 seconds later when Chris Cerutti banged it home, so no lasting damage done there.

Major blemishes were a rarity for a defense corps that hasn't seemed quite at ease all season, and they faced a player shortage of their own with Kevin Miller out for the two games. Still, they did an effective job keeping a WCU team that had seemed to learn how to score off the board (just one even strength goal over the two games). And for the first time in what seems like a while, they chipped in some offense -  examples being Rich O'Brien's goal and Dan Petrick's two assists in Friday's barrage.

"Step up" was more or less the Icers' motto this week with the team depleted of players and a head coach due to the World University Games and injuries, and many did not disappoint. Foremost among those players has to be Mike McDonagh and his hatty in Friday's game. And beyond the fact that the three goals happened has to be their timing and execution. The first set the tone just 1:24 into the game. The other two came over a 55-second stretch midway through the second. This part of a four consecutive from Penn State to put the game out of reach after the Rams had cut the Icers' lead to 2-1 early in the period. All showed a willingness to plow some dirt in front of the net. McDonagh added an assist Saturday and therefore added 50 percent to his scoring total this weekend.

The Massachusetts native talked to Rodney Martin during the second intermission Saturday and didn't seem to be bothered that his goals are called garbage goals by some (myself not included).

"A goal's a goal. As long as you go to the net, it's all good."

Well said, sir. It was guys like McDonagh that allowed acting coach Josh Hand to spread the big guns throughout the four forward lines. Kurt Collins joined Cerutti and Marek Polidor on one of them. And while McDonagh partnered with Dominic Morrone and Paul Daley to do more than their share of the scoring (four goals, five assists between the three of them), I thought another group, Chris Pronchik-George Saad-Michael Longo, was quietly just as effective in a more defensive role Saturday. It was that line that sparked a sluggish start to the game with a dominant shift midway through the first period. Late in the game, after West Chester narrowed the deficit to two on Tom Scocozza's power play marker, the members of that line were prominent in a shutdown role lines reconstituted for that purpose. And the goal from the group turned out to be the game winner.

That goal, off the stick of Longo, was one of many rebound goals over the weekend, which might shed some light on how Randy Japchen ended up going from the USHL's Waterloo Black Hawks to West Chester in two seasons. The Icers' shots came in twos a lot of the time, which is a pretty good way to find offense under somewhat uncertain circumstances. Japchen was great when the rebounds were cleared, such as on a Polidor wraparound attempt early Saturday or on a Daley breakaway later in the game. So I suppose we also saw how he was in the USHL in the first place.

There were no rebound issues in the opposite net, where Matt Madrazo resides. Both starts, 58 saves on 61 shots, and zero drama, which is the way you want it to be. His trademark confidence even extended to his offense, when he made a Ron Hextall-style attempt on the empty WCU net late in Saturday's game that was ultimately knocked down in the center ice circle (said Madrazo afterward: "It was going in.").

The end result of it all - Penn State's winning streak doubling from two to four over the weekend. While I'm not delusional about what we've done or who we've played, it does feel nice to have genuine momentum for the first time since October.

That said, it now gets real in a hurry with the two teams sitting on top of the ESCHL up next. First, the Icers travel to Delaware, who is fresh off of the total annihilation of Washington & Jefferson. Next, Rhode Island comes in for alumni weekend. With all due respect to Robert Morris and West Chester (decide for yourselves how much that is), teams of their caliber have never been the issue. Penn State's 2-6-0 mark against the current ACHA top ten is the issue (put that together with 15-1-0 against teams out of the top ten and it seems the Icers are ranked pretty appropriately). So I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the next two weekends have an awful lot of say in how this season ends up.