Women's Jersey Countdown: #33 Madison Smiddy

Junior - Defender - 5'7" - Grand Rapids, MI

Madison Smiddy is one of just four members of an entering group of 13 Lady Icers freshmen in 2011-12 who advanced to play for the Nittany Lions' NCAA program. That class boosted Penn State to an ECWHL regular season championship in the final ACHA season, thanks in large part to a rock solid defensive pairing of Smiddy and Ashton Schaffer. The Honeybaked product is one of PSU's better offensive blueliners, and is outstanding on the power play, where she has scored five of her six collegiate goals, including against Sacred Heart on November 3, 2012. Although Smiddy is listed at a not-particularly-gigantic 5'7", she plays with the length of a defender several inches taller. She notched an assist in Penn State's historic 5-3 win at Vermont to open the NCAA era on October 6, 2012 and was fourth on the team with a +3 rating (notably, only she and the three above her finished on the positive side of that statistic).

Career Statistics (2011-12 with ACHA Lady Icers):
Season	GP	G	A	Pts.	PIM	PP	SH	GW	GT
2011-12	26	5	5	10	28	4	0	1	-
2012-13	15	1	6	7	10	1	0	0	0
ACHA Career	26	5	5	10	28	4	0	1	-
NCAA Career	15	1	6	7	10	1	0	0	0

Penn State-Mercyhurst Photo Gallery

Here are some photos I took at Mercyhurst University while visiting for Friday night's game between the Nittany Lion women and the Lakers. Click for full size.

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First up, a quick campus tour:

The Audrey Hirt Academic Center

O'Neil Tower, on the left, is Mercyhurst's signature building

Taylor Little Theatre has famous playwrights worked into the building's facade

Tullio Field, the home of Lakers football and lacrosse

Mercyhurst Ice Center's main entrance

Seeing Penn State's banner in other teams' arenas still hasn't gotten old

The Lakers are one of the most storied programs in women's hockey

The Mercyhurst Ice Center actually has chairback seats behind one goal

During pregame, Celine Whitlinger and Brooke Meyer held a conference

The Lakers enter from the corner opposite Penn State

A couple more shots from the pregame, including the next photo

The Nittany Lions on the blue line for the anthems.

The game's opening faceoff.

Casey McCullion (white coat) presides over the defensive end of the bench

Another top-down look at the bench

The team waits to step back on to the ice for the second period

Kendra Rasmussen and Jeanette Bateman attempt to win a puck battle

Hannah Hoenshell dumps in as her teammates look on

11/11 Postgame: Josh Brandwene, Madison Smiddy, Micayla Catanzariti

Comments from head coach Josh Brandwene, sophomore defender Madison Smiddy (on the left in the video) and freshman forward Micayla Catanzariti following the Nittany Lions' 4-1 loss to Robert Morris Sunday afternoon.

W: Penn State 1 vs. Robert Morris 4

Box score // GoPSUSports.com recap // RMUColonials.com recap

Following Penn State's loss to Robert Morris Sunday afternoon, Josh Brandwene claimed that the third period of the game would be a season turning point. Nobody who witnessed it would question that assessment - despite the game's outcome, it was probably the best stretch of hockey Brandwene's young team has played this season when considering the opponent and the play in all three zones.

Forty game minutes before he reached that conclusion though, there wasn't a whole lot to separate Sunday's first period from Saturday's opener. In spite of Dayna Newsom's early shorthanded goal, the Nittany Lions (4-7-1, 0-5-1 CHA) played an outstanding first 10 minutes of the game before the Colonials (5-2-1, 2-0-0 CHA) deployed their talented forward group. Rebecca Vint and Cobina Delaney, two of that group, scored 4:10 apart late in the period to boost the score to 3-0. Vint's sixth goal of the weekend came off the backhand as she sliced across the middle from the right-wing boards, while Delaney found space in the slot and received a nice setup pass from Jamie Joslin up high.

The game veered off of Saturday's course beginning with the second period. Despite a huge territorial and shooting (19 shots to 2 in the period) advantage for the Colonials, Nicole Paniccia stood tall and kept the high-powered visitors off the board.

Penn State started to find cracks in the RMU defense with about 13 minutes remaining in the game, when Emily Laurenzi stole the puck from Thea Imbrogno at the line during a Colonials power play and got in behind everyone, but RMU goalie Delayne Brian (19 saves) was up to the challenge. Micayla Catanzariti finally got PSU on the board about six minutes later, following up on shots by Birdie Shaw and Jill Holdcroft, who started the sequence with a neutral zone interception. Immediately following the goal, the Lions got another chance, but Brian made arguably her biggest save of the game on Taylor Gross' rebound attempt.

Robert Morris coach Paul Colontino used his timeout following the close call. That temporarily settled things down, but PSU had one more thrust left when a late Jennifer Kindret interference penalty and swapping Paniccia for an attacker gave the Nittany Lions a 6-on-4 situation. However, Joslin halted the drama by tossing in an empty netter from near center.

Still, it can't be denied that for roughly half of the game (the first 10 minutes and the last 20), Penn State was on even terms with the defending CHA tournament champs. That alone is a massive step for the young program, which seeks its first conference win next weekend at second-year NCAA program Lindenwood. Sixty minutes like that last 20 will probably get the job done.

W: Penn State 1 vs. Robert Morris 7

Box score // GoPSUSports.com recap // RMUColonials.com recap

Daily Collegian recap

Following Penn State's 7-1 loss to Robert Morris Saturday afternoon, head coach Josh Brandwene accused his team of "playing the scoreboard, not the ice" after the first ten minutes of the game. And truth be told, while the Nittany Lions (4-6-1, 0-4-1 CHA) were playing the ice, they matched up quite well with the defending CHA tournament champs, who improved to 4-2-1 (1-0-0 CHA). The challenge from here, of course, is to do it consistently and for 60 minutes.

In a completely different sense, playing the scoreboard is needed to win hockey games. Someone who did just that: RMU sophomore Rebecca Vint. Vint proved unstoppable with five of the Colonials' seven goals, including three in 4:20 span of the first period. Defender Kylie St. Louis chipped in an unassisted goal off of a turnover, and Thea Imbrogno scored the other one for Robert Morris. All game long, RMU's forwards, including Vint, Imbrogno (who also had an assist), Kelsey Thomas (four assists) and Cobina Delaney (three assists) proved to be be quite a handful for a defense that finally did settle in a little bit over the last 30 minutes.

Shannon Yoxheimer connected for the Nittany Lions' only goal, with a quick shot that surprised RMU goalie Kristen DiCiocco (11 saves in two periods of work) after a faceoff win by Taylor Gross with 3:55 remaining in the second period. The contest was more or less decided at that point but the snipe, Yoxheimer's team-high 10th overall, kept alive a seven-game goal-scoring streak for the Michigan native.

Jeanette Bateman, Jordin Pardoski, Paige Jahnke and Madison Smiddy, along with Gross and Yoxheimer all carried even plus-minus ratings for the game. Pardoski and Bateman also blocked three shots apiece for the Nittany Lions, who will attempt a better result in a rematch Sunday afternoon at 2:00 p.m.

W: Penn State 8 vs. Sacred Heart 2

Box score // GoPSUSports.com recap // SacredHeartPioneers.com recap

In some ways, the 8-2 thrashing Penn State (4-5-1, 0-3-1 CHA) laid on Sacred Heart (3-6-0, 1-6-0 NCAA) Saturday afternoon resembled the 6-0 result from Friday evening. The Nittany Lions, in completing a first-ever NCAA sweep, were largely in control throughout and never seriously threatened past the middle of the second period. PSU put 64 shots on net, just two shy of Friday's 66.

Yet in a couple of important ways, it was very different. Unlike the Hannah Hoenshell / Shannon Yoxheimer show on Friday, the eight goals Saturday came from eight different players, with Kendra Rasmussen, Jenna Welch, Madison Smiddy and Emily Laurenzi all recording their first goals of the season. For freshmen Rasmussen (whose tally technically stood as the game winner) and Laurenzi, the goals were career firsts. Welch obviously scored at UConn, so this was merely her first at Penn State. Smiddy scored for the Lady Icers last year, but today marked her first goal at the NCAA level. The other goals came from more typical suspects like Yoxheimer, who scored from a sharp angle off left wing to open the game's scoring with 5:54 left in the first period.

Another difference was the pushback offered by the Pioneers, who got two past Nicole Paniccia after being shut out Friday. Thirteen seconds into the second period, and eleven seconds after Lindsay Reihl's hooking penalty expired, Melissa Robbins (probably SHU's best player this weekend) tied the game at one. The Nittany Lion response, however, was swift and decisive as Taylor Gross, Rasmussen and Jill Holdcroft all tallied in a 3:23 second-period span to regain the advantage at an ultimately insurmountable 4-1. Holdcroft's goal was particularly noteworthy - for the second straight game, she dispossesed a Pioneer and took it in herself. Jess Desorcie then answered SHU's Whitney Henderson off a rebound from a Gross shot to make the score 5-2 after 40 minutes.

Welch's goal, along with Smiddy's power play point blast and Laurenzi's with eight seconds left closed the scoring.

Next week, the road gets a little tougher as defending CHA tournament champ Robert Morris rolls into town for a Saturday-Sunday series, the Nittany Lions' final Ice Pavilion matches of the semester.

Penn State-RIT Photo Gallery

Photos from Thursday evening's Penn State-RIT women's game. All are by and courtesy of Steven Hass. Click for full size.

Freshman forward Hannah Hoenshell

Freshman forward Jill Holdcroft (left) and freshman defender Paige Jahnke

Jahnke, who set up PSU's lone goal

Junior goaltender Nicole Paniccia

Paniccia makes one of her 34 saves, while sophomore forward Jess Desorcie
keeps order in front

Senior defender Lindsay Reihl

Sophomore defender Madison Smiddy lines up versus RIT's Melissa Bromley

Freshman forward Shannon Yoxheimer celebrates her first-period goal

Three Stars: September 3-9

The student section will now be located right here in Section A.

3. 2013 Draft Hopeful Thomas Welsh Decommits From Penn State
(The Hockey Writers)

I'm not going to linger on Thomas Welsh too much (after this, I'll probably only mention his future plans, when known, in this space, then move on), but here's a take on his decommitment.

Also, North Dakota fans are now going after our leftovers. The balance of power already shifting! All hail the era of college hockey domination by schools that...aren't North Dakota!

2. Meet #33 Madison Smiddy
(YouTube)

The women's team continued their jersey-number-based countdown of "meet" videos last week with Smiddy (selected to lead this entry for her Lady Icer status), Brooke Meyer and Celine Whitlinger.

If I'm doing my math (well, counting) correctly, expect to see Katie Murphy, Taylor Gross, Birdie Shaw, Jenna Welch, Sarah Wilkie and Emily Laurenzi here next week.

1. Student Men's Hockey Tickets to Go on Sale Wednesday, Sept. 12
(gopsusports.com)

The basics: Student tickets will go on sale at the Bryce Jordan Center ticket office from 7 a.m. until 6 p.m. on Wednesday. Each student will only be allowed to purchase one five-game package (for $20) at that time. Should tickets remain after Wednesday, students can then purchase additional packages on Thursday from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m.

There wasn't really an ideal way to deal with the space crunch at the Ice Pavilion, so I respect what administration is attempting here. Essentially, instead of (an estimated) 250 students with full-season plans, there will be (an estimated) 750 students with five-game plans. The fact is, in growing a fan base, the die-hards sometimes have to give way for the sake of numbers, and that's the call being made this case. The plans, as with the grown-up plans, are sliced up equitably - one includes the opener, while the other two include a game against Air Force, the only NCAA tournament team from last season to visit.

If you're a student and reading this, other than from your phone while camped at the BJC...what are you doing? Go. Now. Don't even bother with the rest of the post.

Best of the Rest

There was totally room for both of them on there...wait, got something in my eye, be right back.

@TaylorGross24
(Twitter)

The women's team, as remarkably cohesive as it already is despite 19 newcomers, is not without drama. Consider the battle being waged primarily between junior forward Taylor Gross and assistant coach Casey McCullion over whether Titanic will be played on the bus to Vermont for the season-opening series October 6th and 7th.

Gross: Titanic on DVD combo pack coming out on Monday!!! #bustrip

McCullion: We are not watching a movie about a sinking ship on the way to VT #AssistantCoachesVeto

Gross: Casey!!!!! Coach already cleared it! It is a great movie and a tear jerker. #it'shappening

At last check, Gross was continuing to push for it, while also insisting (in the linked tweet) that if she has to, she'll watch it on her computer, but that it's definitely getting watched. While it's hardly my place to bag on a movie that made $84 billion and has like 38 Academy Awards along with naked Kate Winslet, I'm not sure that I want the captain of the women's team crying on the way to the first NCAA DI game in program history either.

Positives to Titanic? Well, you'd only need to pack one movie for the trip I guess, since it's like 10 hours long and has like 10 more hours of bonus features on the newly-released combo pack.

2012-13 College Hockey America Women's Hockey Preview
(Bleacher Report)

The Nittany Lions are picked sixth of six here, which is admittedly hard to argue as one of the two new-to-DI programs in the league (the other, RIT, was the DIII national champ last year). But in a moment of unintentional comedy only Bleacher Report can provide, their logic for the slotting was, uhhh...

From a roster standpoint, there are only two Canadians on the squad, and that will add to the obstacles of an inaugural season.

So, yeah, no pressure, Katie Zinn and Nicole Paniccia, but you'd better be freaking awesome. I mean, you have to beat the nineteen Canadians on first-place pick Robert Morris. By yourselves, since Americans suck at hockey.

Sorry Angela, you were good, just not Canadian good.

Above the 49: NCAA hockey on the horizon in Canada?
(The Sports Network)

In a story surprising only for how quickly it came up - and maybe not even for that - officials at Burnaby, BC's Simon Fraser University are "openly pondering the possibility of the school competing in NCAA Division I hockey sometime in the near future." I don't know how openly they're pondering, since this column doesn't produce any quotes from school officials, but that's what it says.

SFU, of course, recently became the first school outside of the U.S. to gain admission to the NCAA, although it does not presently sponsor varsity hockey.

Hockey lockout could freeze NBC's sports momentum
(Chicago Tribune)

A quick nugget buried in an article about how NBC Sports is sweating the NHL lockout:

"In the event of a labor stoppage, we are preparing a selection of replacement programming that includes soccer, boxing, original programming, and college football, basketball and hockey," [NBC Sports spokesperson Chris] McCloskey said.

If you're a Notre Dame fan, you have to be pumped about that. If you're not...meh.

Sabres owner sparks development in Buffalo
(The State Journal)

Since last week was pretty light, we'll hit Terry Pegula's coming ice rinks-retail-hotel colossus in Buffalo for a second Three Stars in a row. You'd be hard pressed to find an article more complimentary of TPegs than this one - I'm not even sure Joe Battista can top it.

Former BU defenseman Max Nicastro who, it should be said, had his charges dropped in June.

Report of the Men’s Ice Hockey Task Force
(bu.edu)

Last Wednesday, Boston University's Men's Ice Hockey Task Force, commissioned by the school in the aftermath of sexual assault charges to former Terriers Max Nicastro and Corey Trivino, released its report. The money line from the group's conclusions, in my opinion anyway, is:

Our assessment has shown that a culture of sexual entitlement exists among some players on the men’s ice hockey team, stemming in part from their elevated social status on campus. This culture of sexual entitlement, as evidenced by frequent sexual encounters with women absent an emotional relationship or on-going commitment, can also involve unprotected sex.

Hockey players enjoy an "elevated social status" and get laid a lot without dating, possibly at parties with alcohol? First time around a hockey team, guys?

Without getting into a whole thing about the role of sports in society, suffice it to say that the issue is not unique to BU or to hockey. Nor are the observations concerning preferential treatment in admissions, less-than-rigorous courseloads or insulation from the larger student body. It sincerely is not my intention to give BU a whitewash, but I do think it's a mistake to consider them a bad actor. They're an average actor, although one with the good sense to evaluate itself following a couple of incidents with similar fact patterns. Tip of the hat to those programs - and they are out there - who do better than average. Hopefully BU can join them at some point on the back of the task force's recommendations.

By the way, if you're not interested in the full report, here's the nuts-and-bolts news story from College Hockey News.

W: Penn State 4-2 vs. Rhode Island 2-4

Friday box score // Saturday box score

The Lady Icers, for the most part, are done with their NCAA games this season. Two at DI Sacred Heart remain next weekend, but they are the last of the eleven scheduled.

This semester, though, presents a different type of meat grinder - top ACHA competition. And it couldn't come at a better time for a squad needing to impress the ACHA voters (who slotted PSU 12th in the last poll, in part because the Lady Icers had played but six games in the association to that point).

First in that stretch: Rhode Island. And in two words, impression made.

Penn State split with URI, taking Friday night's tilt 4-2 but dropping Saturday's by the same score. And while some might take issue with my calling a split a statement, consider that the Lady Icers had dropped their last five to the Rams, dating back to October 23rd of last season. Not impressed? Okay, try this on: that win last year was the only one for PSU during the tenure of previous head coach turned assistant Mo Stroemel, despite four scheduled meetings per year. Stroemel was the head coach from 2007-2011. So yeah, beating them is a big deal, made even more so by their status as the No. 5 team in the country.

That first game provided a glimpse of the team's potential, as key veterans meshed with the large freshman class and two key transfers. The last group - Jess Desorcie and Taylor Gross - scored two early goals (Gross' was shorthanded), helping the Lady Icers to a 3-0 lead on one of the ACHA's best teams with 16:02 left in the second period. But don't neglect the first two groups either, since Madison Smiddy scored the middle goal of the three on the power play. Fellow freshmen Katie Murphie and Tess Weaver assisted on Desorcie's goal, and vets Allie Rothman and Lindsay Reihl helped on Smiddy's. Weaver also got her own goal midway through the third to stop a potential Ram comeback before it was able to get started.

Also don't neglect a sound defensive effort that kept Rhode Island stars Johanna Leskinen, Meghan Birnie and Lauren Lanoie pointless, backed by Katie Vaughan being Katie Vaughan and stopping 38 of 40.

The loss the next day swung largely on penalties. Weaver got the Lady Icers on the board first, although URI bounced back to take a 2-1 lead into the intermission. The Rams then blew the game open by scoring two goals as a result of a 5-on-3 situation during a fateful second period stretch, enough to outweigh Desorcie's second of the weekend in the final period. PSU actually won the shot count in the loss (32-29) after being outshot rather convincingly in the win.

Regardless, this feels like the beginning of a run. And with a eight-game stretch of No. 1 Northeastern, No. 4 Liberty, Northeastern again and No. 6 Massachusetts beginning on January 20th (after the Sacred Heart games), it couldn't come at a better time.

W: Penn State 1-1 at Rhode Island 2-3

Friday box score // Saturday box score

If elevating a program was a straight-line process, everyone would do it.

For the Lady Icers (4-7-2 overall, 4-2-0 ACHA), that process took another turn at the Brad Boss Ice Arena as PSU fell twice to Rhode Island, 2-1 on Friday and 3-1 on Saturday.

As I mentioned on Friday, these were large games. Unfortunately, they turned into damaging losses as Penn State attempts the nearly-impossible balancing act of preparing for the future while trying to make one last run to the ACHA national tournament. Achieving that second goal will require winning some poll-shifting ACHA games, and PSU now has two fewer opportunities to do that.

That's not to say that there aren't positives, a list that as usual has to start with Katie Vaughan. The sophomore, quite simply, continues to give PSU a chance to win every night. Friday provided another excellent demonstration via a 40-for-42 effort (part of 65-for-70 over the course of the two games).

This 2011-12 group has also proven to be extremely resilient. When a team faces a 2-0 deficit against a good opponent, as PSU did in each affair, there are two diverging ways things usually proceed from that point: fight or flight. The Lady Icers proved to have plenty of the former, as Madison Smiddy scored on Sydney Sherman's helper Friday to cut the deficit to one with over a period to play. On Saturday, in the dying moments of the second period, it was once again the Grand Rapids, MI newcomer playing an important role. She tied up a defender, which allowed Tess Weaver to collect her own rebound behind the net, swing out to the front and beat Kayla DiLorenzo on her backhand.

In both cases, but especially on Friday, further comeback efforts were short-circuited by untimely penalties. In that first tilt, PSU was whistled for five of the last six infractions, some on questionable enough calls to leave at least one team member call diving and embellishment "the story of our weekend." The result was two URI power play goals, one each game, that essentially stood as the final margin (the Rams' third goal Saturday was last-minute window dressing).

Perhaps that serves as the perfect lead-in to the best news of all: another shot at URI is in short order, and those games will open the spring home schedule on January 6th and 7th. First though, a home-and-home with NCAA Division III Neumann, the former employer of assistant coach Gina Kearns, will close the fall semester. The home game in that set is Saturday at 7 p.m., while Friday's game, also a 7 p.m. start, will be streamed on FastHockey.com.

W: Penn State 6 at California (PA) 0

Box score

On Friday night, the Lady Icers improved to 4-3-2 overall and 4-0-0 against ACHA competition with a dominating 6-0 blanking of California (PA) at the Bethel Park, PA location of the Blade Runners Ice Complex. The game was the road half of a home-and-home arrangement with the Vulcans that began with a 7-0 Penn State win at home on October 28th.

In that first game, the Lady Icers only got one power play opportunity, although senior Sara Chroman made Cal pay with her first of three goals. This time around, PSU was again clicking with the advantage, scoring on its first four tries. Freshman defender Madison Smiddy sniped two of those, both courtesy of Denise Rohlik assists, while Elizabeth Denis scored one of her two goals on the power play. Katie Murphy - a teammate of Smiddy's with Detroit Honeybaked's U19 team last season - closed the scoresheet during Cal's fourth penalty.

Chroman added an even-strength goal and an assist, bringing her totals to four goals, three assists in two games against Cal this season. Paige Harrington, Tess Weaver and Katharine Gausseres contributed helpers.

Mary Kate Tonetti got the start in net, giving Katie Vaughan the rare game off, and earned her first Penn State win and shutout.

PSU will stay on its pattern of alternating ACHA and NCAA games this weekend when NCAA Division III SUNY-Cortland rolls into the Ice Pavilion for Friday night (7:00 p.m.) and Saturday (3:30 p.m.) battles. Just prior to the first game with Cortland, the team will learn what the ACHA coaches think of their start to the season as the first ranking of the season is scheduled for release Friday.