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Just over a minute into the third period, Sarah Thompson skated into the neutral zone and passed left for Maya D’Arcy. Penn State’s Leah Stecker stuck out her stick and deflected the puck to Maddy Christian. She corralled the puck and skated right up the middle of the Syracuse defense, lifting the shot past the glove of Allie Kelley. The Nittany Lions took a 3-1 lead.

PSU followed that goal with three more in the period. The dominant stretch propelled No. 15 Penn State (3-6–1, 2-0-0 College Hockey America) to a 6-2 victory over Syracuse (3-7-1, 0-2-0 CHA). During the four-goal period, Penn State outshot SU 20-11 in shots on goal.

“Our response (wasn’t there),” Syracuse head coach Britni Smith said postgame. “After (Penn State’s) third goal, just coming back ready to go again. (We need to) not have that lull. 90% of the game we’re great, (we need to) fix that 10%.”

Heading into the third period, Penn State led 21-17 in shots on goal and held a 2-1 advantage. Kelley and Josie Bothun tallied more than 15 saves each, holding the offenses to minimal goals despite nine power plays during the first two periods.

In the third period, the Nittany Lions came out hot, scoring three goals in an eight-minute span. Christian’s goal kick-started the Penn State offense, giving it a two-goal cushion. Two minutes later, PSU stretched its lead to 4-1 after Karley Garcia put a shot past Kelley.

Just over five minutes into the third, Kelley faced shots from Penn State’s Kendall Butze, Tessa Janecke and Stella Retrum. But Kelley saved all three, including a shot by Retrum where she grasped the puck while laying on her back.

Two minutes later, Christian gathered the puck in the middle of the ice and rushed up toward Kelley in net without a Syracuse defender in line to stop her. Christian powered a shot, but Kelley positioned her body for the stop, gathering one of her 35 total saves.

At the 8:26 mark of the third period, Janecke fired from the right side of the goal, giving the Nittany Lions their fourth straight goal and ballooning the lead to 5-1.

Syracuse went more than six minutes without a shot before Alyssa Machado picked up her third penalty of the contest. On the power play and off a pass from Alexandria Weiss, Rachel Teslak scored with around five minutes left in the period to stop Penn State’s run.

“On the bench, we talked about how we needed to take chances,” Thompson said. “We got to shoot the puck and (Teslak) scored a really great goal and brought a lot of momentum for us.”

SU’s offense managed four more shots, but the Penn State defense put its bodies in front, tallying two blocks. Bothun made 10 of her 26 saves in the third period to stall the Orange.

With four seconds remaining in the contest, Penn State notched its sixth goal as Retrum corralled the faceoff in SU’s zone and slotted a wrist shot past Kelley, capping off its 6-2 victory and weekend sweep. During the third period, Kelley stopped 16 of the Nittany Lions’ 20 shots on goal.

“We had a lot of girls who played a lot of minutes tonight,” Thompson said. “We were doing our best to get pucks deep. There was a lot of fight in our game. Pucks didn’t bounce our way especially in the third period.”

Published on October 29, 2023 at 7:09 pm