Jan. 21, 2017
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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Three Nittany Lions each scored once and junior goaltender Hannah Ehresmann (Minnetonka, Minn.) stopped all 20 shot attempts en route to a Penn State women's hockey 3-0 shutout victory over College Hockey America (CHA) opponent RIT Saturday afternoon inside the Pegula Ice Arena.
"It was a tremendous game," interim head coach Dean Jackson said. "The ladies played extremely hard for 60 minutes. I thought they did a fantastic job really going through the ebbs and flows of the game. Even when RIT gained momentum in that second period, we didn't back down, we collected ourselves and got back to the game plan and execute the little things we were trying to identify for our game plan to start. Hats off to the team, they certainly earned that win, and I'm really happy for them."
For the Nittany Lion (6-15-4, 5-5-1 CHA) offense Saturday, sophomore Meike Meilleur (Winnipeg, Manitoba) netted her sixth goal of the season, while freshman Amanda McLeod (Calgary, Alberta) recorded her first career goal and freshman Kate Rydland (Eden Prairie, Minn.) sealed the victory with an empty net goal.
Penn State began the game with a pair of goals within the first 9:06 of the contest. During the opening period of play, Meilleur tallied the first goal of the day for the Nittany Lion offense at 7:43. On the Meilleur goal, classmate Victoria Samuelsson (Leksand, Sweden) picked up her seventh assist of the season with the primary assist, while junior Aly Hardy (St. Albans, Vt.) tallied her second assist of the season on the secondary assist.
The Nittany Lions then added to their lead on McLeod's first goal as a Penn Stater at the 9:06 mark. Seniors Kelly Seward (Williamsville, N.Y.) and Sarah Nielsen (Edina, Minn.) tallied assists on the McLeod goal.
With 2:36 left in regulation, RIT (4-20-1, 2-8-1 CHA) pulled netminder Terra Lanteigne for the extra attacker. While Lanteigne was making her way to the bench, Rydland stole the puck from RIT from the inside the Nittany Lion zone. She then made her way up the ice before she fired the puck into the back of the empty RIT net from just inside the red line for her third career goal with 2:33 left in regulation.
In net for the Nittany Lions, Ehresmann made 20 saves for her first shutout of the season, while Lanteigne stopped 23 shots for RIT.
The two teams close out the series Sunday inside the Pegula Ice Arena. Puck drop is set for 2 p.m.
NOTES: RIT leads the all-time series against Penn State, 12-11-2...Penn State has won eight-straight games in the series...Penn State has shutout RIT in all three matchups this season...Both teams went 0-for-2 on the power play...Kelly Seward finished the game with a +3 rating...Penn State blocked 10 shot attempts, while RIT blocked five...Kate Rydland's empty net goal Saturday was the first for the Nittany Lions since Micayla Catanzariti scored an empty net goal on Nov. 14, 2015.