The Illini men’s hockey club knew that the first four games of the second semester would be its toughest tests of the season.

After beginning the season 18-0 and ranked No.1 in the American Collegiate Hockey Association, the Illini have dropped their first four games of the second semester.

The Illini were hoping to bounce back from two losses at No. 2-ranked Ohio on Jan. 6-7, and capture two big wins on the road when they traveled to Penn State to face-off in a rematch of last year’s ACHA National Championship against the fourth-ranked Icers.

But the Illini fell short of their goal this past weekend, dropping both games, 5-4 and 6-3, to the Icers.

“These losses teach us that we’re not invincible,” junior goaltender Mike DeGeorge said. “We need to work hard every game and can’t afford to take any shifts off. We’re going to take this as a learning experience and rebuild and refocus going into the rest of our games and the tournaments.”

On Friday, Penn State came out strong, scoring two goals on DeGeorge in the first 10 minutes, while holding the Illini to only three shots in the first period.

The Illini finally woke up early in the second period when senior forward Mike Roesch found sophomore forward Kevin Wicklin for the Illini’s first goal of the game 41 seconds into the period.

The Icers were able to regain their two-goal lead at the 7:53 mark of the second period, but 26 seconds later a goal by freshman forward Johnny Liang brought the Illini back within one. Almost a minute and a half later, junior assistant captain Marshall Chubirka would tie the game up for the Illini on the power play with his first goal of the weekend.

But the Icers were able to counter the Illini’s attack later in the period with two goals by freshman forward Lukas DeLorenzo to regain a two-goal advantage over the Illini. Sophomore forward Joey Resch was able to bring Illinois to within one goal again late in the second period, but the Illini were unable to finish the comeback in the third as Penn State held on for the 5-4 victory.

“The last two weekends have been pretty disappointing,” head coach Chad Cassel said. “Obviously, they’re very difficult places to play and two difficult teams, but it has taken us awhile to get going, and once we do get going, we don’t continue to roll.”

In a rare Saturday afternoon game, the Illini found themselves trailing after the Icers’ DeLorenzo scored two goals on a power play to give Penn State a 2-0 advantage midway through the first period.

The Illini were able to score on a power play late in the first period when freshman forward Jordan Pringle beat Penn State junior goaltender Paul Mammola with assists from Liang and Wicklin, cutting the Icers lead to 2-1.

DeLorenzo earned himself the hat trick with his third goal of the game early in the second period, putting Penn State back up by two. Chubirka would bring the Illini back within one goal once again when he scored his second goal of the weekend and sixth of the season.

But DeLorenzo proved to be too much for the Illini, scoring his fourth goal of the game and sixth of the weekend to allow the Icers to cruise to a 6-3 win and extend their winning streak to 13, while extending the Illini’s losing streak to four.

“That whole line did a lot of damage against us,” Cassel said. “They’re a very talented line, and they had a lot of power play looks. We knew they were going to be strong going into the games, and we didn’t do a lot to help ourselves against them.”

While the special teams proved to be Illinois’ strength in the first half of the season, it has struggled in its first few games of the second half. After allowing three power-play goals the previous weekend to Ohio, the Illini allowed five to Penn State in last weekend’s contests.

“The defense on the penalty kill wasn’t as strong as we had hoped,” DeGeorge said. “We gave up at least four goals last weekend and this weekend, and we’re going to have to improve defensively going into this weekend’s games.”

After a day off from practice yesterday, the Illini will look to regroup starting today in preparation for this weekend’s games at home against North Dakota State. The Illini will enter the upcoming games with hopes of ending the team’s longest losing streak since the 1999-2000 season, in which the Illini lost five straight.

“Coming back home is going to help us tremendously,” Cassel said. “But we’re going to have to start working harder than we have been and show up to play if we are going to have success against the top teams, and that’s who we have to measure ourselves against.”