Jan. 23, 2016
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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The Penn State women's hockey team played to a 2-2 tie against College Hockey America (CHA) opponent Robert Morris Saturday afternoon inside the Pegula Ice Arena. Sophomore Hannah Ehresmann (Minnetonka, Minn.) made a season-high 40 saves in net for the Nittany Lions.
"Well, some days, like yesterday, you get the last good bounce in the day," head coach Josh Brandwene said. "It certainly worked yesterday when we go that last good bounce. Today was one of those days we did not get that last good bounce. That was almost 130 minutes of out and out war between two great hockey teams that have tremendous respect for each other and that was just up and down for 65 minutes today. I'm certainly pleased with the hard work and effort we put in today and we're going to build on the success into a tally of the weekend moving forward here."
For the third time this weekend, Hannah Bramm (Tampa, Fla.) found the back of the net for the Blue and White. From the Nittany Lion (7-14-5, 3-4-5) end of the ice, Amy Petersen (Minnetonka, Minn.) played the puck to Laura Bowman (Minnetonka, Minn.) who brought the puck into the PSU offensive zone. With the puck, Bowman found Bramm in front of the RMU net and she buried her eighth goal of the season.
The Colonials (12-9-5, 4-4-4) tied the game at one with 2:16 left on the clock in the first period off of Ashley Vesci's ninth goal of the season. The score remained tied at one heading into the first intermission with Robert Morris tallying a 14-10 shot advantage.
The 1-1 tie held entering the third period as neither team found the back of the net in the second frame. During the second period, RMU outshot Penn State, 17-6, with Bowman and Sarah Nielsen (Edina, Minn.) each tallying a pair of shots.
Both squads each recorded a goal in the third period of play. Petersen netted her fourth goal of the season 9:35 into the third period. Petersen received a cross-ice pass from Sarah Wilkie (Ashby, Mass.) in the middle of the neutral zone. With the puck, Petersen took on an RMU defender one-on-one and beat the defender and goalie Jessica Dodds top-shelf for the go-ahead goal.
RMU's Rikki Meilleur tied the game at two with 33 seconds left in regulation to send the game into overtime for the second-straight day. Penn State outshot Robert Morris, 12-7, during the third period.
The overtime period featured Robert Morris outshooting Penn State, 4-1, but neither team was able to tally the game-winner securing the 2-2 tie.
Seventeen of Ehresmann's saves came during the second period. For Robert Morris, Dodds made 27 saves in the game a day after making 23 saves last night.
The Nittany Lions continue their eight-game homestand next weekend as RIT comes to town for a two-game series starting Jan. 29 at 7 p.m.