Penn State Plays Ilini 05 Champs in Rematch

Since there is a slight lull going on in the NHL news world worth blogging about, I thought I'd check in with all my pals at Penn State to see how their ACHA season is going.

First of all, I should have made this post a long time ago to congratulate Coach Joe Battista (JoeBa) for surpassing his 500th career coaching win at the Arizona State University Desert Classic. He's a great coach and well deserved for this kind of honor.

My Penn State Nittany Lions have been sitting in wait at the #4 ranking in the ACHA polls. And this weekend they took on the #1 seed Illinois University. In what was expected to be a defensive battle, the Nittany Lion Icers were victorious in a 2 game weekend series sweep. Penn State won last Friday's match 5-4 and 6-3 last Saturday.

"One of the things we talked about in our pre-game meeting was developing a killer instinct," Battista said. "You get a team down by two goals, you gotta bury them."

The new ACHA rankings will be due out this coming Friday and it is expected that the Illini will slip down a few. With the National Tournament set only six weeks away, it is believed that Penn State is in good position.

[Via: Penn State Daily Collegian and Penn State Daily Collegian]