Icecats crushed in tournament opener

Tanith L. Balaban Arizona Daily Wildcat Senior center Ben Ruston (19) hooks an ASU player earlier in the regular season. The Icecats lost to No. 1-seeded Penn State yesterday with a score of 10-3 in their first game at Nationals. Ruston sat out for most of the game with a deep thigh bruise.

That's just about the only word that can describe the first six minutes of the Arizona Icecats' first game at nationals yesterday.

In those six minutes No. 1-seeded Penn State scored six unanswered goals.

It would be all the Icers (20-3) would need.

Eighth-seeded Arizona (15-10-1) wound up losing 10-3 in the first game of the American Collegiate Hockey Association National Tournament in Ames, Iowa.

"It was one of those games," Icecat head coach Leo Golembiewski said. "We played 54 minutes of pretty good hockey. The score was not indicative of the game. We had tremendous maturation from the first period to the third."

Penn State junior forward Eddie Burisch scored a hat trick in the opening barrage, while Icer goalie John Sixt kept the Icecats off the scoreboard until freshman left wing Paul Dorn scored on a power play at the end of the first period.

Another Penn State goal left Arizona down 7-1 at the end of two periods.

Sophomore center Tommy Thompson scored twice in the third period, but three more Icer goals set up the final score.

Goaltending - a main concern for the Icecats going into the game - didn't come through.

Sophomore Mike Tesi was pulled after the first nine minutes as he only managed six saves on 12 shots.

Freshman Joe Peplinski fared a little better, giving up one goal on seven shots in the second period before he was hit hard in the third.

This marks the third year in a row that the Icecats have fallen to Penn State at nationals. The last two years saw the Icers beat Arizona by identical scores of 4-2.

For the Icecats, the loss likely ends any hope of playing in Saturday's championship game, which matches the best teams from Pools A and B.

The Icecats play in Pool A with Penn State, host team and fourth-seeded Iowa State and fifth-seeded Eastern Michigan.

If Arizona is able to win its next two games it could make it to Saturday's consolation game, which pits the second-best teams in the two pools.

The Icecats get their shot at Iowa State tonight at 6:30 p.m. Tucson time. Results from the Cyclones' game against Eastern Michigan were unavailable.