Penn State-Chatham Photo Gallery II

Photos from Saturday night's Penn State-Chatham women's game. All are by and courtesy of Steven Hass. Click for full size.

Sophomore forward Tess Weaver

Freshman forward Katie Zinn

Senior defender Lindsay Reihl

Freshman forward Emily Laurenzi

Freshman defender Paige Jahnke

Freshman forward Kendra Rasmussen

Freshman defender Stephanie Walkom

Sophomore forward Cara Mendelson

Sophomore forward Katie Murphy

Senior forward Kate Christoffersen

Murphy

Junior forward Jenna Welch (left).

1/5 Postgame: Brandwene, Welch, Zinn

Comments from head coach Josh Brandwene, junior forward Jenna Welch (on the left in the video) and freshman forward Katie Zinn following the Nittany Lions' 4-0 win over Chatham Saturday night.

W: Penn State 4 vs. Chatham (NCAA DIII) 0

Box score // GoPSUSports.com recap // Chatham.edu recap

New lineup, same result.

Josh Brandwene made massive changes to his team for Saturday's rematch with NCAA Division III Chatham - in the end, every player on the roster saw ice over the weekend - but the Nittany Lions (7-12-1, 1-8-1 CHA) rolled once again, this time by a deceptively close 4-0 score.

Considering Penn State's entire top line of Shannon Yoxheimer, Jess Desorcie and Taylor Gross, as well as lethal Hannah Hoenshell, got the night off, a duplicate of Friday's 10-0 romp would probably be asking too much. Still, other than the goal count, the gaudy stats remained in place against a Cougars team that only had 13 players available. PSU rifled 71 shots on Chatham goalie Kaitlynn Smith and allowed only 16 against Celine Whitlinger and Brooke Meyer (who closed out the final 7:26 of the game). Of those 16 CU shots, only four came from beneath the dots. Emily Laurenzi's 12-3 record in the faceoff circle led the way to a 30-11 advantage on a team level.

It was Laurenzi's line, which included Jenna Welch and Katie Zinn, that accounted for three of the four goals. Zinn opened things up 5:07 into the game by slipping a wrister through from the left wing circle. A Cougar defense that blocked 32 shots and Smith - despite issues controlling the puck all game long - kept Penn State at bay until late in the second period, when Madison Smiddy's point bomb on net was dropped by Smith, allowing Welch to push it home. PSU finally cracked things open in the final period when a turnover deep in the Chatham zone allowed Zinn and Welch in behind everyone, with the Canadian feeding the Texan for her second of the night. Jill Holdcroft closed things out 58 seconds after Welch's second with a putback of her own rebound.

The Nittany Lions will now hit the road for the next four games (closing out a stretch of ten away games in 12 bridging the semester break) beginning with games against the ECAC's Union Dutchwomen in Schenectady, NY next Friday and Saturday.

Penn State-Chatham Photo Gallery

Photos from Friday night's Penn State-Chatham women's game. All are by and courtesy of Steven Hass. Click for full size.

Darby Kern made a great play to set up Kendra Rasmussen in the first period.

Shannon Yoxheimer's shots, appropriately, often leave a vapor trail.

Captain Taylor Gross in her customary net-front position.

Yoxheimer got her typical two goals and 10 shots in early.

Jenna Welch was fantastic on both of PSU's PKs and added a late goal.

As usual, scrappy Micayla Catanzariti was in the middle of the action.

Jordin Pardoski (4) celebrated her birthday by scoring.

Sophomore Tess Weaver scored her first NCAA goal late in the first period.

Hannah Hoenshell dangled her way to a brace.

Local kid Jill Holdcroft scored 21 seconds into the second period.

Brooke Meyer made six third-period saves to close out the shutout.

Birdie Shaw is tough, as CU's Maike Blakely learned the hard way.

W: Penn State 10 vs. Chatham (NCAA DIII) 0

Box score // GoPSUSports.com recap // Chatham.edu recap

Josh Brandwene and Jordin Pardoski postgame video // GoPSUSports.com photos

The Nittany Lion women (6-12-1, 1-8-1 CHA) mauled NCAA Division III Chatham (1-8-0, 0-6-0 ECAC West) 10-0 to open the spring semester schedule Friday night at the Ice Pavilion.

Severely overmatched almost from puck drop, the Cougars - who lined up with just seven forwards and four defenders - witnessed PSU put on a stat-padding clinic. Nine of the Nittany Lions' ten goals came at even strength, helping every single PSU skater improve her plus-minus, with the defense tandem of Sarah Wilkie and Jordin Pardoski, along with forward Hannah Hoenshell, leading the way with +4 ratings. Additionally, every skater except Wilkie, Birdie Shaw and Lindsay Reihl registered at least one point and goaltenders Nicole Paniccia, Celine Whitlinger and Brooke Meyer each took one period of a shutout effort.

It's probably not worth recapping each goal in great detail, but here are a few of the highlights:

• After a surprisingly even first eight minutes of the game, Shannon Yoxheimer scored her team-high 11th and 12th goals of the season in rapid succession. The first came on the power play, with Jess Desorcie locating the Michigander slicing through the middle for the shot, while the second was a wicked snipe off of the rush just after a Paniccia blocker save.
• Hannah Hoenshell, who has to have some of the sauciest mitts in college hockey, scored two of her own - the first came just 26 seconds after Yoxheimer's second, while the other was a beautiful drag around besieged Cougars goalie Megan Buchanan late in the second period.
• Tess Weaver scored her first-ever NCAA goal at 17:06 of the first period, when she popped one past Buchanan from the right-wing circle in transition.
• Weaver skated on a line with Kendra Rasmussen and Darby Kern. All three had outstanding games, with Kern asserting a case for a continued increase in ice time. Her chip and retrieval around CU defender Abby Maier, along with the subsequent centering pass, set up one of Rasmussen's two goals.
• Last, but certainly not least, birthday girl Jordin Pardoski got the best present any hockey girl can get: a gino. Her blast at 7:54 of the second period officially turned the game from lopsided to a full-on rout.

PSU will try for a duplicate effort - while Chatham will try for better - Saturday night at 7:00 p.m. in the Ice Pavilion.

The Grind Returns

What
NCAA Men: at Connecticut
NCAA Women: vs. Chatham (NCAA DIII)

Where
NCAA Men: Freitas Ice Forum, Storrs, CT
NCAA Women: Greenberg Ice Pavilion, University Park, PA

When
NCAA Men: Friday, January 4 at 7:05 p.m. and Saturday, January 5 at 7:05 p.m.
NCAA Women: Friday, January 4 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, January 5 at 7:00 p.m

Coverage
NCAA Men: UConn video ($), Friday PSU audio ($), Saturday PSU audio ($), UConn audio (free), Friday live stats (free), Saturday live stats (free)
NCAA Women: PSU video ($), TYT live blogs (free), Friday live stats (free), Saturday live stats (free)

UConn relies heavily on goalie Garrett Bartus.

The Penn State men (9-10-0 all games, 8-9-0 NCAA, 6-8-0 NCAA DI) have proven that they can beat one of their soon-to-be-rivals from the almost-here Big Ten. Now they need to prove that they can sustain that level of quality on the week-in, week-out basis that is the hallmark of good teams.

The first round of that test will come this weekend at Connecticut, the Nittany Lions' eighth different Atlantic Hockey opponent of the season. For what it's worth, PSU is 5-6-0 against AHA opposition, a mark that would be good for seventh in the 12-team conference.

The Huskies (5-8-2, 4-6-1 AHA) are tied for eighth in that league, although that's an incomplete view of the program. UConn, long ridiculed as a school uncommitted to its hockey program, will be stepping things up by joining major-conference Hockey East for the 2014-2015 season. In that transition, they'll be ramping up their scholarship count from zero to the maximum of 18. In addition, their plan for Hockey East games is to use Hartford's 15,635-seat XL Center (the former home of the NHL's Whalers) while exploring a renovation and expansion of their existing 2,000-seat rink or even possibly constructing a new facility altogether.

So in a weird way, the two blue-and-white clad programs will be growing up together, coming from decidedly different backgrounds but attempting to compete regularly with college hockey's big boys within a season of each other in the future. PSU took a step towards that end in beating Ohio State last Saturday, but UConn took a similar step in winning 3-1 at future HEA rival Merrimack on November 10th, a win that joins an impressive 2-2 tie against Union, a team presently ranked 13th in the country.

The Merrimack win came just five days after 25-year head coach Bruce Marshall announced an indefinite medical leave of absence, temporarily handing the reins to assistant David Berard. In that light, it's been a decidedly up-and-down season for the boys from the Nutmeg State's flagship.

It seems fair to say that power play goals will be at a premium this weekend, as the Huskies are one of only three teams ranked behind PSU in conversion rate while on the advantage, with five goals in 60 tries compared to the Nittany Lions' six in 69. That stat underscores a general lack of UConn offense this season, as their 1.93 goals per game are also ranked in the nation's bottom five. Senior Sean Ambrosie and sophomores Trevor Gerling and Cody Sharib lead a balanced attack with four goals apiece, although Connecticut's 29 goals this season have been scored by 12 different players.

When a team's offense is struggling, the defense and goaltending is forced to step up, and luckily for the Huskies, they have a stud goalie in the form of senior Garrett Bartus. The workhorse is part of the 24th best scoring defense in DI, thanks to a 0.917 save percentage and a 2.54 goals against average. The defense tandem of senior Alex Gerke and freshman Tyler Cooke (a teammate of PSU's Jake Friedman with the EJHL's South Shore Kings in 2010-2011) is a big part of the effort as well.

Despite 16 shots on Chatham goalie Megan Buchanan last season, Tess Weaver was unable to score - but she'll have another shot at putting one past Buchanan this weekend.

After a fairly brutal schedule to close the fall semester (Robert Morris, Lindenwood, Mercyhurst, St. Lawrence) the women get a bit of a reprieve to open the spring with NCAA Division III Chatham.

In the Cougars (1-7-0, 0-6-0 ECAC West), Penn State (5-12-1, 1-8-1 CHA) has an opponent that has won exactly one NCAA hockey game since February 20, 2010 - November 17th's 5-2 win at Buffalo State.

CU, a women's school of 2,300 undergraduates, has an 11-179-5 NCAA record in ten-plus seasons of varsity hockey and usually fills out portions of its schedule with ACHA opponents. That included the Lady Icers last season on November 4th and 5th, 2011, with the two teams skating to a pair of draws. The first was scoreless, with Katie Vaughan earning a 33-save shutout, while the second ended 2-2 thanks to Denise Rohlik and Elizabeth Denis goals. Present NCAA team members combined for an assist (by Lindsay Reihl), 32 shots (16 by Tess Weaver) and 12 penalty minutes (eight by Katie Murphy) in the the two games.

Cougars head coach Jason Evans is someone familiar to Penn State hockey as the former coach of Robert Morris' ACHA program, back when the Colonials were good. His tenure at RMU included a meeting with the Icers at the 2007 ACHA national tournament in which heavily-favored PSU was pushed to overtime. Morgan Becer leads Chatham's nine rostered forwards with two goals and four points, while besieged goalie Megan Buchanan faces an average of 47 shots per 60 minutes between the pipes. Sophomore blueliner Gina Abrego is another Cougar to watch.

The weekend and its anticipated blowouts should provide a soft landing back in the season's grind. The team that has been out of action since a 4-2 loss at St. Lawrence on December 8th that saw the Nittany Lions claw within one through Hannah Hoenshell's goal with eight minutes left only to surrender a late power play goal for the final margin.

Things get considerably tougher after this weekend, with Josh Brandwene's gang heading to Union on January 11th and 12th, followed by a trip to CHA rival Syracuse on January 25th and 26th.