Oct. 28, 2017
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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The Penn State women's hockey team opened its 2017-18 College Hockey America (CHA) slate with a 3-3 tie against the No. 9/10 Robert Morris Colonials Saturday afternoon at the Pegula Ice Arena.
Trailing 2-0 after the first period of play, Penn State scored three-straight goals, including two within a three-minute span, to take a 3-2 lead with 7:30 left in regulation.
"To be down two and battle back and get a point, it's certainly admirable," head coach Jeff Kampersal said. "We told them in the timeout and in between periods, we're going to coach them really hard, we're going to be tough on them, they might perceive some of it as negative, hopefully they don't, but we have great expectations to win every game that we play.
And they should too because when they play, they are a very good hockey team, and when they don't, it can get muddy quickly, but they do hang in there. So I'll give them a lot of credit, and they're good kids."
The defending CHA regular season and tournament champions jumped out to a 2-0 lead 13:39 into the game, as Sarah Lecavalier scored at 8:31 and then Amber Rennie added to the Robert Morris (5-1-1, 0-0-1 CHA) lead.
Junior defenseman Kelsey Crow (Minnetonka, Minn.) cut the deficit to 2-1 with 7:20 left in the second period with her second-straight game with a power play goal. On the goal from close-range, Crow put the Nittany Lions (2-5-2, 0-0-1 CHA) on the scoreboard with assists from freshman Natalie Heising (Maple Grove, Minn.) and sophomore Brooke Madsen (Eagan, Minn.).
Down 2-1 with less than 11 minutes to play in regulation, the Nittany Lions lit the lamp twice on one of the statistically-best goaltenders in the nation within a three-minute span.
First, Heising scored her third goal in as many games to knot the game at 2-2 with 10:10 remaining in regulation. On the Heising tally, classmate Sophie Slattery (Edina, Minn.) and junior Meike Meilleur (Winnipeg, Manitoba) were credited with the assists.
Minutes later, Penn State found the back of the net once again, as Meilleur captured her second goal of the 2017-18 season with 7:30 to go in regulation. Slattery netted her second assist of the day with the primary assist, while Crow tallied her first assist of the season on the secondary assist.
The Colonial attack wouldn't go down quietly, as Kirsten Welsh forced the game into overtime at 3-3 with her second goal of the season with 97 seconds left in regulation.
Neither team was able to find the go-ahead goal during the final 1:37 of regulation or the five-minute overtime period, ending the game in a 3-3 tie.
In net for the Nittany Lions, senior Hannah Ehresmann (Minnetonka, Minn.) finished the day with a 25-save outing, while Elijah Milne-Price made 28 saves for Robert Morris.
The two teams close out the series Sunday, Oct. 29, at 2 p.m. Following Sunday's contest, the Penn State women's hockey team hosts a free post-game skate.
NOTES: Robert Morris leads the series against Penn State, 14-4-3...Penn State outshot Robert Morris, 31-28...Penn State went 1-for-3 on the power play, while Robert Morris went 0-for-4...Penn State has scored a power play goal in three-straight games...Slattery tallied a career-best two-assist outing...Heising recorded her first career one-goal and one-assist game...Heising has tallied a career-best three-game point streak (3g, 1a)...Meilleur netted her third career one-goal and one-assist game...Crow posted her second career one-goal and one-assist outing game...Penn State has played in three-straight overtime games (1-1-1).