No. 4 Penn State Women’s Hockey Shuts Out Syracuse 4-0
No. 4 Penn State women’s hockey (3-3-0, 3-1-0 AHA) shut out Syracuse (4-2-0, 2-2-0 AHA) on Saturday afternoon at Tennity Ice Pavillion, 4-0.
After a rough loss in overtime on Friday night handed them their first conference loss of the season, the Nittany Lions rode strong goaltending from Maddy Campbell and two goals from Nicole Hall en route to their first shutout of the season.
How It Happened
After spending much of Friday trailing, it was important for the Nittany Lions to come out hot. They got the first two shots of the game in the opening minutes, but took the game’s first penalty after a hooking call on Lorelai Nelson at 4:33.
Maddy Campbell was only tested once during the power play, but stood tall. The ice tilted the other way over the ensuing minutes, with the Orange being forced to bear down as they did on Friday night.
After a series of shots were blocked, the Nittany Lions earned their first power play of the night when Syracuse’s Celia Wiegand was called for checking from behind at 9:58.
Penn State’s power play looked disjointed throughout, only attempting one shot, which was blocked. Just as the power play expired, a long shot from Taya MacDonald deflected back onto the stick of Nicole Hall, who buried her third goal of the season to give the Nittany Lions a 1-0 lead at 11:58 on the power play.
Just a minute later, Syracuse got its second power play as Sophie Morrow was sent to the box for slashing at 12:58. Unlike their first power play, the Orange maintained the zone and peppered Campbell with shots, forcing her to make three saves before it was finally killed off.
By the end of the first period, Penn State was being outshot, a rarity in conference play, but it held a 1-0 lead.
Right off the bat out of intermission, Sofia Ismael ripped a shot past Ava Drabyk for her fifth goal of the season at 0:31 to make it 2-0 Penn State.
Despite the score not reflecting it, Syracuse was playing a lot more even a game, but Campbell stayed sharp. A penalty on Syracuse’s Kendra Raypholtz at 6:22 gave the power play a chance to truly break the game open, but Drabyk made two big saves to keep the deficit at two for the Orange.
Alanna Devlin took a minor penalty for the Nittany Lions at 10:00 in the second to give Syracuse its third power play, but it was killed off with three more saves by Campbell, although her job wasn’t finished. Sustained time in the offensive zone forced her to make two more saves shortly after.
The two sides took dueling penalties at 12:39 for holding, as Syracuse’s Nina Geric and Penn State’s Shelby Shane both went to the box. Just 65 seconds later, a boarding call on Megan Hosman made it a 4-on-3 for the Orange at 13:44, but the Nittany Lions killed it off again.
Syracuse stayed on the attack for the rest of the second, but Penn State held onto its 2-0 lead into the third period.
The Orange won the opening faceoff of the third and once again controlled play in the offensive zone, but couldn’t get many pucks on net. Shortly after off a faceoff in the Syracuse end, Hall buried her second goal of the game on a shot that deflected off a Syracuse defenseman at 1:18 to make it 3-0 early in the third period.
No matter what Syracuse did, lightning just wasn’t striking twice from last night. Penn State moved back into the offensive zone, and the puck found Mikah Keller, who buried a feed from Morrow for her second goal of the season at 3:51 in the third to extend the lead to four.
While much of the game had been played with Syracuse on the offensive, these two quick goals to start the third tilted the ice in the Nittany Lions’ favor as things quickly spiraled for the Orange.
After two penalty-filled periods, the two teams played a clean third, as the Nittany Lions wound out the clock to secure the split in Syracuse.
Takeaways
- Quality > quantity. Penn State outshot Syracuse 44-18 in its 5-4 overtime defeat on Friday night, so in theory, you’d think things would get much worse if the Orange flipped the script on Saturday. Not so fast, as despite being outshot 30-21, it was a much cleaner game for the Nittany Lions.
- On that note, Syracuse also won 57.7% of the faceoffs and committed two fewer penalties. It was better at quite literally everything than it was on Friday… except for scoring and stopping the puck, of course.
- Head coach Jeff Kampersal has evenly platooned his two netminders this season, with there being little gap between them through two weeks. There might be an early leader in the competition after the weekend’s split. Morgan Stickney allowed four goals on 13 shots on Friday, while Maddy Campbell pitched a 30-save shutout in Tennity Ice Pavilion on Saturday.
What’s Next?
The Nittany Lions return home to Pegula Ice Arena to face Lindenwood at 2 p.m. on Friday, October 16. The game will be streamed on Big Ten Plus.
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