Buckeyes upend No. 1 Nittany Lions
For the first time since October of 2015, Penn State failed to earn a win in a two-game series at Pegula Ice Arena.
The top-ranked Nittany Lions fell to the No. 11 Ohio State Buckeyes by the score of 6-3 of Saturday, capping a weekend of disappointment for Guy Gadowsky and his team.
“It’s too bad. We wasted a heck of a crowd,” said Gadowsky. “It was just a tremendous atmosphere all weekend, awesome to play in. Obviously, we didn’t have our best stuff at the start. I think we did in effort, but I think we were looking for big plays early instead of doing what we do."
The Nittany Lions got out to an early lead once again with a goal from David Thompson, but the Buckeyes retaliated, using three straight goals from John Wiitala, Mason Jobst, and Dakota Joshua to take a 3-1 lead. Penn State would answer, as Kris Myllari and Andrew Sturtz each scored in the second period to tie the game at 3 heading into the second intermission.
From that point on, though, it would be all Buckeyes. Ohio State outscored the Lions 3-0 in the game’s final period, getting goals from Matthew Weis, Luke Stork, and Christian Lampasso as they pulled away.
According to Andrew Sturtz, the Lions got away from their style of play this weekend, trying to do too much at times.
“I felt like we definitely tried to do too much in certain areas and against a team like that we’ve just got to outwork them, and we’ve got to do what got us here, and I felt like we kind of got away from that,” said Sturtz. “I think next weekend you’ll see us go back to what got us where we are.”
Penn State again outshot the Buckeyes, this time 44-28, while also winning the faceoff battle 37-28.
Ohio State goalie Christian Frey turned in another impressive performance against the Lions, saving 41 shots. According to his head coach Steve Rohlik, though, he was the beneficiary of a lot of help from his teammates.
“Our defenseman have been [blocking shots] quite a bit, but our forwards have started to buy in and they still scored two point shots, which was disappointing,” said Rohlik. “But, you can’t count on Christian to go out there and make every save, the guys have to sacrifice themselves, and I thought you saw that out of our hockey team this weekend.”
As for Penn State’s net-minder, Gadowsky felt the opposite way, as costly turnovers made things difficult for freshman Peyton Jones.
“I feel a little bit bad for Peyton because I think the first three goals were all on-0’s, two breakaways and one short breakaway,” said Gadowsky.
Gadowsky also noted that he doesn’t think nerves were a factor in his team’s subpar performance, stating that he and his players didn’t put much stock into being ranked first in the latest poll.
“The only thing we talk about as a team is that the voting doesn’t matter, we’re not trying to appease voters,” said Gadowsky. “We’ve never talked about, ‘boy, we want to be ranked number one.’”
The Lions will look for a rebound performance next Saturday, as they travel to Philadelphia's Wells Fargo Center to take on Princeton in the Philadelphia College Hockey Faceoff.