Women’s hockey opens first Division I season Saturday
UNIVERSITY PARK -- With new uniforms, a new league and a nearly new team, Penn State women’s hockey coach Josh Brandwene hopes his squad will meet every challenge this season and be “playing the best hockey at playoff time.”
“This team’s objective is to set the tone and create a [hockey] culture” as it enters its first year of Division I play, said senior defenseman Lindsay Reihl, from Cheshire, Conn.
The roster of 27 includes 17 freshmen. Only six players from last year’s club program remain, including sophomore forward Tess Weaver, the team’s offensive player of the year who scored 14 goals and had 21 assists in 30 games last season.
The team is opens its season at Vermont Oct. 6.
Since arriving on campus June 1, 2011, from a New England prep school coaching job, Brandwene has concentrated on recruiting. A 1991 Penn State graduate, he has been a coach for 20 years.
His roster has five players from Michigan, five from Pennsylvania, two from Minnesota, two from Colorado, two from California, two from Connecticut, two from Texas, and one each from Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Delaware, British Columbia and Ontario.
Junior forward and captain Taylor Gross, from Colorado Springs, Colo., transferred from the University of Connecticut, along with junior forward Jenna Welch and junior Nicole Paniccia, one of three goalies on the team.
“We have a lot of depth and talent from both the freshman and older classes,” Gross said. “We are going to surprise a lot of people.”
The team joins the College Hockey American conference and will start conference play Oct. 13 against Syracuse at home. In a 33-game schedule, the team will play 22 conference games.
The six teams in the conference are Syracuse, Rochester Institute of Technology, Robert Morris, Mercyhurst, Lindenwood and Penn State. There is no Big 10 women’s hockey league.
“We hope to create good rivalries, especially with the Pennsylvania teams,” Gross said, referring to Mercyhurst and Robert Morris. The team has a home-and-home stand with each Pennsylvania school later in the season.
The team will not play any opponents it faced as a club team. Last year in the American College Hockey Association and against Division III teams, it had a 12-15-3 record and missed the ACHA playoffs for the second straight year.
This year the team will play at the Greenberg Ice Pavilion but next year will move to the new Pegula Ice Arena. Tickets are free.
“The varsity program has been a concept for 15 months,” Brandwene said, “and now the team is here and ready to go.”
