Penn State women's hockey unleashes fury of shots but can't break through in series with Syracuse

Coming into a pair of contests against Syracuse, Penn State had displayed an extremely high-powered offensive attack, but it was silenced in the series.

The Nittany Lions tied the Orange 1-1 in Friday’s contest, and Saturday was a similar story, with Syracuse coming away with a 2-1 victory in overtime.

The blue and white came into the series averaging just a tick under three goals per game but scored just two combined goals across the two tilts.

Despite scoring just two goals in the series, the Nittany Lions tallied an impressive 101 shots in those games, which ranks well above their season average of 36 per game.

Although the goals didn’t come in bunches this weekend, coach Jeff Kampersal was pleased with his team's offensive attack.

“They kept plugging away, supporting each other on the bench and on the ice they were hungry,” Kampersal said. “It’s certainly frustrating.”

In Friday’s contest, the lone goal came from sophomore Alyssa Machado with under four minutes remaining in the third period, which snapped a seven-game goal drought for her.

Penn State outshot Syracuse 46-28 and had several chances to score but couldn’t find twine.

Saturday was nearly the same game with the Nittany Lions struggling to get on the scoreboard until midway through the third period when junior forward Rachel Weiss scored her fourth goal of the season and tied the game at one.

The goal snapped a 14-game streak where she failed to find twine and Kampersal was impressed with her performance.

“She is a player who is really fast and skilled,” Kampersal said. “That line had a hard-working game and a hard-working goal.”

The blue and white finished the game with an impressive 55 shots compared to the Orange’s 21.

Although the Nittany Lions posted high shot totals this series, they didn’t have many quality shots.

The offensive attack was focused on putting pressure on the goalie by just continuing to throw pucks on the net, and Kampersal wants his team to get better quality shots.

“We had a couple of flank shots on the power play that was ill-advised with nobody in front,” Kampersal said. “On entries, we need to do a better job with a mid-lane drive like Machado’s goal yesterday, and a couple of times today, that’s when the quality of the shot has improved.”

Penn State was led in shots this weekend by sophomore forward Kiara Zanon, who registered 15 in the two games.

The power play has been an area where the Nittany Lions have struggled mightily this campaign, and this series was no different.

The blue and white had nine power-play chances and it failed to score on all of those opportunities.

On the nine power plays Penn State tallied 24 shots and came close to scoring but couldn’t light the lamp.

On the campaign, Penn State has converted on just 17% of its power-play chances, finding the back of the net 16 times out of its 92 opportunities.

Despite failing to score with an extra player, Kampersal mentioned that the team is close to breaking through on the power play.

“There were a couple of give and go’s between Natalie and Kiara that were good looks,” Kampersal said. “There were a couple of back doors that were good looks, but we weren't in the right spot we needed to be in.”