Penn State's offense explodes, beats Lindenwood 7-1 to sweep series

UNIVERSITY PARK Pa. - No. 12 Penn State women’s hockey steamrolls Lindenwood in a 7-1 victory as Kendall Butze contributed on six of the seven goals.

Butze’s five assists in the game tie a program record with the most assists in a single game and her six points are in a three-way tie for the second most in a single game. Here’s what she had to say about her performance.

“I don’t know where that came from. I had a great game, but couldn’t have done it without everyone else on the ice,” said Butze. Giving her teammates credit for her historic game is a huge reason why Penn State is playing the way they are playing.

When asking Penn State’s coach, Jeff Kampersal, about her performance he went on to say this. “The best part is Kenny (Kendall Butze) loves to play hockey. Whether it’s during game day or whether it’s early morning practice she loves to play the game and therefore it makes sense that she would have a game like today.”

With that win the team has improved to a 4-0 record in conference play and an 11-3 record overall this season. “We’re going to get the best of every team in our league and we need to bring our Saturday performances,” said Kampersal.

He then went on to give a lot of credit to the atmosphere in the game. “It’s hard on Friday when there’s students still in class and younger kids don’t get out of school till three and that makes it hard to get the atmosphere like we had today,” said Kampersal.

Pegula was up and rowdy today and maybe that had a factor on the outcome of the game. Penn State held Lindenwood to only one goal on 18 shots on goal while scoring seven of their own on 45 shots on goal.

When asked about the two games against Lindenwood and having a combined 96 shots on goal here is what Kampersal said. “Today we did a better job of taking away the goalie’s eyes so they couldn’t see the shots coming through.” Kampersal also went on to say “It’s more of not shooting for shooting sake but we had more grade A opportunities today.”

Penn State was able to put up 10 goals this two-game stretch and only hold Lindenwood to three goals. Penn State’s goalie, Katie DeSa, had 25 saves during this two-game stretch with an average save percentage of .872.

Some other notable players during this two-game stretch are Katelyn Roberts, who scored four points, and Tessa Janecke, who scored five points.

Moving forward Penn State’s women's hockey team is staying at Pegula Ice Arena and will be hosting Robert Morris University who is currently 5-7-1.

Peyton Waddell is a second-year student majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email prw5142@psu.edu.