Women’s hockey scores five unanswered points for first win

UNIVERSITY PARK Pa. – The Penn State women’s hockey team exploded for five unanswered goals to claim their first win of the season, 5-1, over Holy Cross on Friday afternoon in non-conference action at Pegula Ice Arena.

Penn State (1-3-1) had five different scorers who found the back of the net in the second and third periods, including a stellar game from their line of Amy dobson (Hamilton, Ontario), Rachel weiss (Calgary, Alberta) and Alyssa machado (Mississauga, Ont.), Who combined six points.

“Overall it’s great to get a win, our squad really needed it,” said the head coach Jeff Kampersal. “It’s good for them to have a victory song after a game.”

After falling behind 1-0 at the start of the second period, Olivia wallin (Oakville, Ont.) Got the PSU on the board quickly followed by the eventual winner of the game by Machado.

Penn State stacked in the third period, Weiss scoring Penn State’s next goal followed by Kiara Zanon (Fairport, NY) and Mya Vaslet (Stittsville, Ontario).

“They have been playing pretty well all year,” said Nittany Lions’ Kampersal. “In our first four games our record could be different, but there are certainly still things that we need to improve, like starting faster… The other team scored the first goal in four of our five games, this which isn’t ideal, but I love the way we react to adversity, we usually come back pretty strong. Now he captures that hungry effort for 60 minutes, but overall I’m proud of them. “

HOW DID IT HAPPEN

The scoring action didn’t start until the second period, but not before the Penn State goaltender Josie bothun (Wyoming, Minn.) Made his presence known with a big time-saver on a two-on-one early in the second period.

However, the Crusaders managed to get on the board first when Carle Magier hit the puck just in front of the crease with 13:38 on the clock.

Penn State also received a play penalty, forcing the Nittany Lions to skate shorthanded for the next two minutes. PSU managed to stop the power play and that ultimately resulted in the tying goal on the other end.

Kiara Zanon made an excellent play on the forward chess to force a Holy Cross turn-over right in front of the net. His shot was saved, but the puck went straight to Wallin who scored in the open cage to tie the score with 8:49 left in the period.

A little over a minute later, the Nittany Lions returned to the attack to take the lead. Rachel weiss and Amy dobson had a great entry into the attacking zone with Dobson putting a chance on target. Machado scored another rebound goal with 7:21 on the clock to give the Nittany Lions their first lead of the afternoon.

In the third period, the same trio got back to work to double the Nittany Lions’ lead to two. Dobson cleared the puck from the Holy Cross defense in the offensive end and pushed it towards Machado, descending on the left wing.

Machado went under the goal line and found Weiss wide open in the slot and the junior picked her corner to give Penn State a 3-1 lead at 5:51 of the third period.

PSU struck again less than two minutes later on Zanon’s first goal of the year. She intercepted a Crusader clearance attempt and turned behind the goal before coming out the other side and covering a wrist shot at 7:19 in the period.

Penn State closed the scoring with just one tick in 30 seconds left on a great individual effort from Vaslet. After recovering the puck at the goal line, she pushed her way past three Holy Cross defenders and buried a shot just to the right of goal for her first collegiate goal.

PLAY NOTES AND STATISTICS

• The multipoint match was the first of his career for Machado, the second at Weiss (January 21, 2021 at Lindenwood) and the fourth for Dobson. Zanon also picked up his 10^e career multipoint game in just its 25^e career game.
• Zanon led Penn State with six shots on goal, closely followed by Weiss (5) and Machado (4).
• Bothun finished the game with 19 saves, improving his season’s GPA to 1.59 and his save percentage to 0.918.

FOLLOWING

The Nittany Lions wrap up their non-conference series with Holy Cross on Saturday, October 9 at 5 p.m.