Women’s Hockey Falls to Lindenwood
The Penn State women’s hockey team (7-20) fell to the Lindenwood Lady Lions (4-23) 3-1 Friday afternoon at the Greenberg Ice Pavilion in the first game of a two-game weekend series.
The matchup got off to a quick start, but despite a bevy of initial opportunities, neither team was able to put points on the board. Lindenwood goalie Nicole Hensley saved point blank shots by Penn State’s Birdie Shaw and Taylor Gross, and LU’s Kelsey Talbot had a nice chance stopped by Nicole Paniccia.
Penn State first year head coach Josh Brandwene was impressed with the Nittany Lions early efforts.
“We established ourselves early,” said Brandwene. “We had three or four shots coming out of the gate and had a really good rhythm going.”
Penn State finally opened the scoring nearly 15 minutes into the first period, when Emily Laurenzi connected on a pass from Shaw and found the back of the net on the power play to score her third goal of the season.
“We were down there on the fore check and Birdie [Shaw] made a beautiful pass and I was able to make it count,” said Laurenzi.
The Nittany Lions would hold the lead for the rest of the period and outshot LU 14-12 in the opening 20 minutes of play.
From the start of the second period on, however, LU continued to put more and more pressure on Penn State. Lindenwood was successful on the power play, successfully converting two chances.
The tying goal came at 12:15 in the second when Alyssa West, assisted by Chelsea Witwicke, put the puck past Paniccia.
The player advantage worked in the Lady Lion’s favor once again, as Witwicke was the beneficiary of a loose puck in front of the net. Paniccia had made two saves prior, but lost her balance as the junior defender added a goal to an earlier assist.
“The second goal was frustrating,” said Paniccia. “I thought I had saved it, but it got away from me and they were able to score.”
The third period was full of action on both ends of the ice. A boarding penalty at 4:06 pushed Penn State onto the power play and a roughing call less than a minute later gave the Nittany Lions a two-player advantage, but a couple nice clears by Lindenwood and five saves by Hensley kept the Lady Lions in front.
Gross also had a couple on chances on the power play, but came away with nothing to show for it, as did Shannon Yoxheimer and Jess Desorcie.
“We generated a lot of good chances on the power play,” said Brandwene. “They just didn’t fall for us today.”
Penn State had a chance to grab the equalizer in the last five minutes when Shaw just missed on a connecting pass to Jill Holdcroft.
Despite the loss, Paniccia was a bright spot for the Nittany Lions, ending the night with 42 saves, topping the 40-save mark for the 10th time this season.
Playing with an empty net and six attackers for the final 75 seconds, the Nittany Lions couldn’t get anything past Hensley. With 25 seconds left to play, Caitlyn Post took a pass from Lyndsay Kirkham and netted the third goal of the game for the Lady Lions, ending Penn State’s chances to tie the game.
“One of our keys going forward is to keep our feet moving,” said Brandwene. “It’s important for any hockey team, especially a young one, to stay in the moment.”
The Nittany Lions won’t have long to wait for a chance to avenge the loss, as they will take on Lindenwood again tomorrow afternoon in their final home game of the season. Puck drop is at 2 p.m. on ComRadio.
April Kaminsky is a senior majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact her, e-mail ajk5330@psu.edu.
