Penn State men’s hockey forward Adam Pilewicz and defenseman Clayton Phillips will be returning to Happy Valley next fall.

After wrapping up the season with a crushing overtime defeat to Wisconsin in the Big Ten Hockey Tournament, both players announced they’ll take advantage of the additional year of eligibility provided by the NCAA last fall.

“Penn State has given me everything I could have ever imagined and more,” Pilewicz wrote online. “I have made friendships and memories that will last a lifetime, and now it’s my turn to give this school everything I have.”

Pilewicz had a statistically quiet senior campaign with zero goals and assists, but his impact off the ice was influential to the rest of the team. Notably, he danced in THON 2021 alongside a few other representatives of the Student-Athlete Advisory Board.

“He does the right things all the time,” head coach Guy Gadowsky said about Pilewicz during the season. “He’s a great teammate. He does extra work in the weight room…He’s the type of person that not only hockey teams want, but every successful company, team, or organization wants. There are guys that drive teams to play the right way, and he’s one of them.”

The Sewickley, Pa., native has two goals and two assists with the Nittany Lions, all scored during the 2018-19 season.

Clayton Phillips, on the other hand, will be much more of a presence on the ice for the Nittany Lions next season.

Phillips is coming off a somewhat uneventful second season at Penn State after spending his first two years at Minnesota. The Pittsburgh Penguins’ 2017 draft pick notched three goals and four assists during the previous season and has five goals and 11 assists over the course of his two-year career with the Nittany Lions.

“I truly could not be more excited to be coming back to Hockey Valley for another season next fall and playing in front of the best fans in all of college hockey at Pegula Ice Arena one last time,” Phillips wrote on Twitter.