The Rose Bowl wasn’t the only sporting event that kicked off the New Year with a No. 1 versus No. 2 matchup.

A few days after USC and Texas battled it out for the BCS National Championship, the American Collegiate Hockey Association No.1- ranked Illini men’s hockey club traveled to Athens, Ohio to face-off against No. 2 Ohio University in a pair of Central States Collegiate Hockey League Conference games.

But just as the in the Rose Bowl, the No. 2 ranked team was victorious as the Illini were defeated by the Bobcats 4-3 and 4-1 on Jan. 6-7. The losses were Illinois firsts of the season, dropping them to 18-2 and 8-2 in conference play.

“It was kind of the same story both nights,” head coach Chad Cassel said. “We out-shot them and got a lot of high-quality scoring opportunities, but we just didn’t finish and they did. Other than the second period of Friday night’s game I thought we played and worked hard.”

On Friday the Illini were able to get on the scoreboard first when freshman forward Johnny Liang scored a shorthanded goal with an assist from fellow freshman Jason Nemeth to give the Illini a 1-0 lead. However, this would be the only lead the Illini would have this weekend – and it didn’t last long – as Ohio would tie the game up just over two and a half minutes later.

The Illini found themselves trailing 2-1 midway through the second period before sophomore forward Joey Resch scored with assists from freshman Jordan Pringle and sophomore Drew Heredia. But a pair of penalties late in the second period proved to be costly as the Bobcat’s Paul Warriner notched two powerplay goals to give Ohio a two goal lead going into the third period.

Early in the third period, Nemeth found Liang once again for his second goal of the game, which brought the Illini within one of the Bobcats. But Ohio’s junior goaltender Ryan Baksh was able to hold the 4-3 lead for the Bobcats to earn them the win.

“We had a lot of high-quality scoring opportunities with some of our best players, and they weren’t finishing,” Cassel said. “When you’re on the road against a good team you have to take advantage of every good opportunity you get and we didn’t do that.”

The first two periods of Saturday night’s game proved to be a defensive struggle. The lone goal through the first two periods was scored by Ohio’s Warriner.

Warriner added another goal again in the third period against Illini junior Mike DeGeorge to give the Bobcats a 2-0 lead, before Illinois finally got on the scoreboard halfway into the period on the power play, when Liang scored his third goal of the weekend to cut the Ohio lead to one.

But it wasn’t long before Ohio was able to regain the two goal lead and begin to pull away from the Illini.

While Ohio was able to take advantage of the opportunities provided by Illini penalties, the Illini struggled to produce the offense and special teams that Illini fans have come to know, converting only one of their 13 opportunities on the power play.

“We had a lot of undisciplined penalties, especially late in the games when we were losing,” senior team captain Steve Krates said. “Our power play struggled also, which is not normal for us. We had a lot of good looks, but we just didn’t finish.”

With the losses the Illini dropped to 3-6-2 against the Bobcats over the last three seasons, and more importantly fell 16 points behind Ohio in the CSCHL conference standings. This leaves the Illini with a big uphill climb to overcome, if they are to be crowned conference champions.

“Now we are relying on a lot of help from other people to win the conference,” Cassel said. “That’s not a good situation to put yourself in. It doesn’t look good for us, but who knows; we’re just going see what happens.”

Illinois will look to learn from and correct its mistakes in order to regain its form before heading back on the road to University Park, Penn., for two more very difficult games against No. 4 ranked Penn State.

“I played there my freshman year,” Krates said. “It’s a fun place to play and a similar atmosphere to here or Ohio, so we know what we have coming at us.”

The games this Friday and Saturday night will be a re-match of last year’s ACHA National Championship game in which the Illini defeated the Nittany Lions 4-3 to earn Illinois its first ever ACHA National Championship.

Penn State is coming off a 5-4 victory in its last game against fifth-ranked Iowa State in the Arizona State University Classic, and enters this weekend’s contests riding an 11-game winning streak.

“Penn State is a difficult place to play, and we know they are going to be excited to play us.” Cassel said. “It’s a little bit different style of team. Ohio was a bigger, stronger, more defensive minded team, whereas Penn State is more similar to us being more offensive minded, so it should be a great matchup from that stand point.”