Nov. 2, 2012
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - It was another night of first for the Penn State women's hockey team in a 6-0 win over Sacred Heart on Friday at Greenberg Ice Pavilion. Freshman Hannah Hoenshell (Plano, Texas) marked the program's first hat trick, while the Nittany Lions earned their first shutout. Shannon Yoxheimer (Jackson, Mich.) scored twice and Jill Holdcroft (Pennsylvania Furnace, Pa.) struck for her first collegiate goal in the rout.
"Give credit to the players," Head coach Josh Brandwene said. "I was really pleased with their performance tonight. We had a great week of practice and a really strong first period."
Penn State (3-5-1) fired away on a sluggish Sacred Heart (1-5-0) team all game long. Pioneers goaltender Alexius Schutt, putting 22 of the team's 66 shots on frame in the opening period. The Nittany Lions finally got on the board after seven minutes when a loose puck between Schutt's legs was punched in by a diving Hoenshell, a play that was set up by Katie Zinn's (Coquitlam, B.C.) initial left-winged shot. The assist was Zinn's first collegiate point.
Despite holding a dominating 22-2 edge in shots, Penn State held only a 1-0 lead through the game's first 20 minutes. Hoenshell quickly doubled the score just 2:32 into the second period, taking an Emily Laurenzi (Townsend, Del.) feed from center ice, looping around two Pioneer defenders and beating Schutt on the stick side for a 2-0 lead.
Four minutes later, Taylor Gross (Colorado Springs, Colo.) fired a shot from the point off a Jess Desorcie (Westford, Vt.) faceoff win that caromed off Yoxheimer's stick in front of the net and over Schutt's mask for a 3-0 lead.
Ninety-one seconds later, Holdcroft corralled an SHU turnover in the Penn State defensive zone and raced down the center of the ice, beating Schutt on a backhand for the 4-0 lead.
The Nittany Lion bombardment continued into the third period as Yoxheimer crushed a puck top shelf past Schutt just 10 seconds into the frame off a Desorcie faceoff win. Yoxheimer leads the team with eight goals this season and is on a five-game scoring streak.
The Penn State scoring would conclude seven minutes into the third period when Hoenshell darted down the ice, beat a Pioneer defender and shot low right past Schutt for the six-goal lead, the largest lead of the young Nittany Lion program. Laurenzi recorded her second assist of the evening on the goal.
In net, Nicole Paniccia (Oakville, Ont.) and Brooke Meyer (Naperville, Ill.) combined for the 18-save shutout. Paniccia stopped 11 Sacred Heart shots and Meyer made seven saves in her collegiate debut, coming on in the third period.
PSU out-shot Sacred Heart 66-18 for the game, including edges of 22-2 in the first period, 19-9 in the second and 25-7 in the third. The Lions were dominant in the faceoff circle going 43-23 with Desorcie posting a 13-4 record. Laurenzi went 11-5, Holdcroft 6-2 and Kendra Rasmussen (Sartell, Minn.) going 9-8. Gross also went 3-0 for the Nittany Lions.
Neither team converted on the power play as PSU went 0-for-3 and SHU went 0-for-2. The teams meet on Saturday afternoon for a 2:00 p.m. showdown at Greenberg Ice Pavilion. Live stats and free live audio will be provided through GoPSUsports.com for the contest.
--NITTANY LIONS--