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Looking to make a push offensively, Syracuse had the puck deep in Penn State’s defensive zone. After a scramble in the left corner, the puck kicked back to Mallory Uihlein behind the red line. Tatum White attempted to steal the puck from Uihlein to keep Syracuse’s attack alive, but Uihlein quickly passed the puck to Courtney Correia to her right.

Correia made a move to get by Hannah Johnson, but she lost control of the puck right to Charlotte Hallet past the center of the ice. Hallet attempted to pass the puck to her right side, but Correia’s pursuit distracted her and she picked her head up. Hallet lost track of the puck and whiffed, Arielle DeSmet in front of the goal and Correia in straight pursuit. Correia beat Hallet to the puck and headed toward the left goal post. With DeSmet blocking that side of the goal, Correia got the puck to her right side while inside the crease and scored past a diving DeSmet.

“We struggled in our defensive zone, picking up sticks,” Lauren Bellefontaine said. “They were just able to get the bounces and I think that’s what killed us this game.”

A poor defensive performance tormented Syracuse (9-19-2, 6-6-1 College Hockey America) as it lost 7-0 to No. 10 Penn State (21-8-2, 11-1-1 CHA). Penn State’s quick, smart, and simple offensive attack proved to be too much for the Orange to handle defensively. The Nittany Lions’ four third-period goals gave them their third victory over SU this season.

For the first seven minutes of the game, Syracuse and Penn State were evenly matched and locked into a defensive battle. However, 7:41 into the game, Madison Primeau was called for slashing, giving Penn State a power play.

With its skater advantage for the ensuing two minutes, Penn State’s offensive intensity drastically changed with Primeau in the penalty box. After getting the puck into the teeth of Syracuse’s defensive zone Penn State rapidly fired four shots on goal and scored when Olivia Wallin scored a rebound goal giving Penn State an early lead.

10 minutes later, Penn State was in attack mode again. Karley Garcia brought the puck outside Syracuse’s crease but good defense forced her shot to miss wide to the right. Garcia followed her miss, which kicked off the boards behind the red line and near the face off circle on the right, and pinned Mik Todd against the board. This allowed Katelyn Roberts to swoop in and possess the puck.

“(Our defensive performance) was very up and down,” head coach Britni Smith said. “(We were) pretty inconsistent with our defensive gameplan.”

Roberts made a move to get the puck towards the middle of the ice and in the process of doing so, all five SU skaters were solely focussed on her. This allowed Lyndie Lobdell to be wide open just in front of the blue line.

After dishing the puck to Lobdell, Roberts skated towards the middle of the crease and two Syracuse defenders marked her, setting up an open lane for Maeve Connolly near the right goal post. Lobdell possessed the puck and started skating to her left causing the Syracuse defense to shift in that direction and DeSmet to move closer to the left goal post.

Quickly after moving to her left, Lobdell spotted Connolly wide open in front of the right goal post and fired the puck to her. With no defenders paying attention to her and DeSmet on the opposite side of the goal, Connolly fired a one timer and easily extended the Nittany Lions’ lead.

SU only allowed one goal in the second period, by far its best defensive period of the game, but everything unraveled in the third period. Five minutes into the third, Kendall Butze got the puck near Syracuse’s blue line and made a move to free away from Rayla Clemons.

With no defenders approaching her, Butze skated down the left side of the rink near the boards. As Butze approached the red line, three SU defenders laid their eyes on her including Sarah Thompson, who lost track of Mya Vaslet behind her and in the crease.

With a small opening, Butze perfectly slung the puck to Vaslet one-on-one with DeSmet and she scored to give Penn State a 4-0 lead. Following Vaslet’s goal, Penn State scored three more goals throughout the period, proving to be too much to handle for Syracuse’s defense.

“(Penn State) is just more speedy than us,” Mae Batherson said. “It was kind of how they wore us down. There’s a lot of D-zone play, so that gets tiring trying to chase them around.”

Published on February 3, 2023 at 10:02 pm

Contact Justin: justingirshon@gmail.com | @JustinGirshon