UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Wisconsin jumped out to an early three-goal lead and the No. 19 Penn State Nittany Lions were unable to mount a comeback falling to the Badgers, 7-3, on Saturday evening in Big Ten Conference action from Pegula Ice Arena.
The Nittany Lions fall to 18-12-2 overall and 10-11-1-1 in the Big Ten with the setback while the Badgers improve to 11-16-5 on the year and 7-10-5-2 in conference action.
HOW IT HAPPENED
- Wisconsin opened the scoring as Jack Gorniak was able to finish far side off the rush at 8:57 of the first period for the 1-0 lead.
- The Badgers then grabbed the 2-0 advantage with the benefit of an odd-man rush as Josh Ess finished off a feed from Linus Weissbach with just 28 seconds remaining in the opening frame.
- The visitors continued to increase the lead in the second period as Weissbach sent a no angle shot over the shoulder of Jones from below the left dot for the 3-0 margin at 6:36.
- Penn State finally got on the board as sophomore Adam Pilewicz (Sewickley, Pa.) ripped a rebound into a yawning net after classmate Alex Limoges (Winchester, Va.) initial bid was turned aside for the 3-1 deficit at 16:56.
- Wisconsin responded as Josh Ess snuck a shot from the point through traffic off a clean face-off win at 16:56 before Tarek Baker scored shorthanded at 18:09 of the middle frame for the 5-1 lead.
- The Nittany Lions got one back late as senior Chase Berger (St. Louis, Mo.) ripped in a rebound off sophomore Alex Stevens' (Plymouth, Minn.) initial blast for the 5-2 deficit with just 8.1 seconds remaining in the second period.
- Matthew Freytag wasted little time in the third period extended the lead for the Badgers as he pinched in off the faceoff and beat Jones through the arm from his knees for the 6-2 lead at 1:07 of the stanza.
- Junior Brandon Biro (Sherwood Park, Alberta) cut the deficit to 6-3 as he finished off a beautiful feed from senior Alec Marsh (Bridgewater, Pa.) near the right post at 13:30 of the third period.
- Seamus Malone hit the empty net at 15:57 to seal the win for Wisconsin.
GADOWSKY POSTGAME
Opening Statement:
"I thought tonight there was two teams. One was ready to compete and one wanted an easy game. When that happens, this result is what you get."
Q: This is the fourth time this year where you have won the first game of the series and lost the second pretty handily. Is there a certain aspect of this that doesn't surprise you at this point, even if you hope it doesn't show up?
GG: "That observation is right on. I am surprised because we've seen it and we've tried to address it. Obviously, it's my issue, it's up to me to make sure we're ready to compete and we weren't. I keep thinking we learned the lesson and obviously we haven't. So no, I always think we've learned the lesson. I am still surprised. I am actually very surprised. Very disappointed and I don't have the answer."
Q: Do you think it's an answer you can find at this point?
GG: "I'm going to try. We certainly are going to try. Obviously, we had a lot going on tonight so we didn't have a discussion but I asked those that have really solid ideas to tell the captains and we'll meet with them on Monday. Yes, I think it's possible to do what we set out to do this year but for us to have that happen we better learn this lesson. So yes, I still think there's time."
Q: It seemed like you guys had a hard time gaining the zone tonight, what did they do different defensively that caused these issues?
GG: "You always want to look for different systematic answers and I honestly think tonight the difference was that one team was ready to compete and one wasn't. That goes both ways though. Obviously, they competed harder at our net and they also competed harder at theirs. We didn't defend well, but we didn't attack well either. Give them credit but I don't think they changed anything. They changed their mentality and we changed our mentality too."
GOALTENDING
- Jones drops to 14-9-2 on the year after allowing six goals on 31 shots over the opening 41:07 of game action before being lifted for senior Chris Funkey (Orland Park, Ill.) who made 11 saves in 18:11 of game action.
- Daniel Lebedeff responded nicely after last night finishing the night with 38 saves while moving to 8-10-2 on the year.
NOTES
- Wisconsin held the slim 43-41 lead in shots while each team went 0-for-4 with the man-advantage.
- Playing in his 147th consecutive game for the Nittany Lions, senior captain Chase Berger (St. Louis, Mo.) tied David Goodwin '17 for the most games played in program history. Berger also registered his 14th goal this season, which is a new career-high as he is now just three goals shy of Andrew Sturtz '18 for the all-time program record.
- With eight goals tonight, Penn State now has seven games this season with at least seven goals and they have now reached that number 21 times in program history.
- Junior Nate Sucese (Fairport, N.Y.) sees his point streak snapped at six games as he was held off the scoresheet.
NEXT UP
Penn State closes the regular season with a trip to South Bend to battle Notre Dame in a pair of contests next weekend.