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March 2, 2018
BUFFALO, N.Y. - The No. 4 seed Penn State women's hockey team concluded its sixth season as a varsity program with a 7-2 loss to the No. 9, and top-seeded, Robert Morris Colonials in the semifinal round of the 2018 College Hockey America (CHA) Tournament Friday at the HarborCenter.
"I thought today wasn't necessarily our best effort," head coach Jeff Kampersal said. "I thought we showed up and were ready to play, but we found ourselves on the wrong side of the puck too often, trying to cheat plays and get on offense. I think that might have been ok in the past few weeks, but it wasn't ok against Robert Morris and they made us pay for not having good habits."
The Colonials (21-7-4) jumped out to an early 1-0 lead on a goal from Jessica Gazzola just 1:15 into the contest. Trailing 1-0, the Nittany Lions (10-15-11) knotted things up at 1-1 on a power play goal from Katie McMillan (Minnetonka, Minn.) from the blue line at 4:54.
On the McMillan tally, Kelsey Crow (Minnetonka, Minn.) picked up the primary assist and Katie Rankin (Kanata, Ontario) was credited with the secondary assist.
With the score tied at 1-1, Robert Morris netted a pair of goals from Natalie Marcuzzi at 8:53 and at 15:55 to take a 3-1 lead after the first period.
Robert Morris then tallied three goals in the second period to extend its lead to 6-1 after 40 minutes of play. For RMU in the middle stanza, Amber Rennie scored at 2:41, Brittany Howard recorded a goal at 6:02, and Lexi Templeman netted a goal at 10:43.
In the third period, freshman Natalie Heising (Maple Grove, Minn.) scored at the 8:47 mark to make it a 6-2 contest in favor of RMU. With her goal on Friday, Heising set the Penn State record for goals in a season with 19. Caitlyn Sadowy added a goal with 22.5 seconds left in regulation to secure the 7-2 victory for RMU.
In net for the Nittany Lions, senior Hannah Ehresmann (Minnetonka, Minn.) recorded 32 saves in 57:22 of action, while freshman Chantal Burke (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan) made one save in 2:38 of play. Elijah Milne-Price posted a 17-save outing for the Colonials.
NOTES: Robert Morris leads the all-time series against Penn State, 16-4-5…Robert Morris outshot Penn State, 40-19…Penn State went 1-for-2 on the power play, while Robert Morris went 1-for-4…Heising recorded her third-straight game with at least one goal...Katie Rankin has tallied at least one assist in three-straight games...Katie McMillan has a three-game point streak (1g, 4a)...Senior defenseman Bella Sutton closes out her Nittany Lion career holding the program records in goals by a defenseman (16), assists by a defenseman (41), and points by a defenseman (57)…Sutton played in 138 career games, which ranks eighth all-time at PSU…Ehresmann finishes her Penn State career second all-time in wins (22), saves (1,983), save percentage (.922), first in goals-against average (2.27), and tied for first in shutouts (seven).