Nov. 4, 2013
By Jackson Thibodeau, GoPSUsports.com Student Staff Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The Penn State women's hockey team has adopted an attitude and mentality to guide the student-athletes and coaches through the ups and downs that they will encounter throughout the season.
"We actually have a quote: `Something to prove and nothing to lose'," said senior goaltender Nicole Paniccia.
The Nittany Lions (2-7-1) dropped contests to conference foe Robert Morris on Thursday, 4-0, and Friday, 6-0, but despite the tough setbacks the Blue and White will stick to their mentality and look to demonstrate resilience as a team while focusing on the positives.
"We got off to a really good start with our mentality," said head coach Josh Brandwene after Friday's loss. "There is still a lot of good to take away from this weekend."
So what were some of the positives taken away from the series?
Although offensive efforts weren't rewarded on the stat sheet with goals or assists, the Nittany Lions demonstrated their ability to make successful in-game adjustments against a quality opponent.
In both games, shot attempts on goal increased from the first to the third period.
"We had a lot of chances that didn't make their way to the back of the net and the positive is that we are getting those opportunities," Brandwene said.
One of the reasons Penn State wasn't able to register shots on goal in Friday's contest was because of the successful shot-blocking efforts of the opponent--and that too was resolved with an adjustment at the intermission.
Defensively, the Nittany Lions showed significant improvement on the penalty kill as the Colonials scored on just one of six power plays in the two games combined. Paniccia recorded 33 saves on Thursday while sophomore netminder Celine Whitlinger turned away 43 pucks on Friday.
Whitlinger made an impressive diving save in the second period of her start, stopping the puck in its path with her glove. The save was ultimately overturned and was called a goal because her glove crossed over the goal line.
"Celine did a marvelous job and our penalty kill was great," said Brandwene.
Along with the `something to prove and nothing to lose' motto, Brandwene has stressed an importance of paying attention to small details to his team.
"It is those consistent little small scale actions that we have to build on and make sure we are doing on a 60 minute basis," he said.
Some of the actions that he emphasized were battles for the puck in the corners and behind the net. Freshman forward Laura Bowman won many of these battles, including a two-on-one behind the net that nearly led to a goal on Saturday. Another near-goal opportunity came late in the third period of Saturday's contest when junior forward Jess Desorcie exploded out of the penalty box, received the puck on a breakaway but fired just wide left of the pipes.
The team will hit the ice again this week in practice with that same mentality that has drove them so far this season. They are confident they will continue to improve the small things and that will help them as conference play heats up.
"We will bounce back with a hard week of preparation in practice," said sophomore Shannon Yoxheimer. "We have everything to gain and nothing to lose at this point."
The Nittany Lions will close out their eight-game home stand next weekend with a 2 p.m. matchup with Syracuse on Saturday and again at the same time on Sunday. The Orange will serve as the second-straight CHA opponent that Penn State will face.
"We just want to go out there and prove everybody wrong," said Paniccia.