Penn State offensive onslaught leads to 6-1 victory and season sweep over Lindenwood

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The Penn State Nittany Lions continued their high-octane offensive weekend completing the season and series sweep over Lindenwood in a 6-1 victory.

Jeff Kampersal’s team, coming off of a 10-1 blowout victory in Game 1, led by Tessa Janecke’s hat-trick and Katelyn Roberts' four-point efforts, flaunted their scoring depth in Game 2, boasting five different goal scorers.

Stella Retrum got the party started for Penn State, netting her eleventh of the season 2:16 into the opening period.

Maddy Christian kept the party in Pegula rolling, capitalizing off of an errant pass from the Lindenwood netminder, Natalie Ferenc, finding the back of the net with a Datsyuk-esque flip of the puck seven minutes later.

After two goals in the opening ten minutes, Lindenwood settled in, denying the Nittany Lions out for the rest of the frame.

Undisciplined play began to accumulate for both teams in the second as three minor penalties were called in an eight-minute span. It took until the third power play for either team to make the most of the man advantage.

Brianna Brooks, who drew the tripping minor on Lindenwood’s Brooke Piosk, the final penalty called in those eight minutes, tickled the twine for the eighth time this season off of a feed from Tessa Janecke at 15:38 of the second.

Brooks’ lone goal of the middle frame set Penn State up to begin the final period up by three.

Just 28 seconds into the final stanza, Penn State’s Karley Garcia was called for a trip and Lindenwood’s Gigi Pora buried a rebound thereafter to get the Lions on the board.

It was all Penn State after Pora’s power-play goal. The floodgates opened around the 16-minute mark with the Nittany Lions pouncing, stretching and clawing for every loose puck, beating Ferenc three more times in a nine-minute stretch.

Brianna Brooks put Penn State up three with her second of the afternoon, tallying her second multi-goal game of the season, finishing off a crisp tic-tac-toe play from Maddy Christian and Leah Stecker.

Katelyn Roberts continued her impressive weekend, finding the top shelf off of a fast break set up by freshman defenseman, Karolina Hengelmüller’s stretch pass.

“Robbie's finishing more now. Robbie's always had great vision, and sometimes she looks to pass rather than shoot so I'd rather see her shooting first and she's starting to adapt to that mindset,” Kampersal said after Katelyn Roberts’ five-point weekend.

Mya Vaslet sealed the deal, polishing the crossbar, going bar down off of a dish from Hengelmüller with 7:17 left in regulation, and Penn State cruised to their twelfth straight victory over the Lions.

Hengelmüller’s second assist counts for the first multi-point game of her collegiate career.

“We kind of have Lindenwood’s number at this point,” Kampersal said. “They kind of play more hockey than they defend, if that makes sense. Other teams in our league will just defend, defend, defend.”

The Nittany Lions had a strong showing in the faceoff circle with a 57% success rate, quarterbacked by Brianna Brooks’ 10-for-15 win statistic.

Special teams proved to have the most lackluster performance for both teams, with both the Lions and the Nittany Lions operating at a 25% clip in Game 2.

Penn State scored a resounding 16 goals through 120 minutes of play, only allowing two, backed by two sturdy performances by sophomore goaltender, Katie DeSa.

“It's like the next woman up,” Kampersal said. “To go in the last three games and do what she's done is awesome and I just felt like Katie was very explosive, really good. She was in control and controlled the rebounds and the puck and she did an awesome job.”

DeSa finished the series with 40 saves, with an even 20 in both games. In her three-game starting streak in relief of injured starting netminder, Josie Bothun, DeSa has allowed only two goals.

It’s no shock that losing the 2021 CHA Goaltender of the year for the remainder of the season is a tough blow, but the Nittany Lions defense has made sure DeSa feels comfortable in her crease.

“She [Josie Bothun] was one of our best players so for sure we have stepped up defensively to protect any goalie that's playing and do our best to keep pucks to the net,” Brianna Brooks said.

Penn State heads into their next series against Mercyhurst also without captain Julie Gough, who Kampersal does not expect to see for the foreseeable future.

“Julie plays a big role not only socially, not only on the ice, but off the ice too. And her being around the locker room still is still really awesome for her to hype us up,” Brianna Brooks said. “For sure we lost a really big vocal player on the ice and on the bench for our team.”

“It’s sweep everything from here on in,” Kampersal said.

The Nittany Lions, who improved to 16-11-1 with the win, look to continue their offensive prowess on Feb. 2 at home, but they will be without two of their most notable names.

Owen Gelber is a second-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email omg5144@psu.edu