John Seifarth joined the Penn State club team through a tryout his freshman year, playing for the love of the game. His freshman year, he played in 2 games, averaging a .75 GAA. In his sophomore year, he played in 11 games with a 3.25 goals-against average and a .907 save percentage.

Seifarth has been around the Varsity team since the summer of 2023. That summer, many of the players were up practicing, and they were short goalies, as almost any summer hockey practice and game always is. Incoming captain Christian Berger reached out to him, asking if he would be willing to come practice with the team. Nobody even mentioned the idea of him ever joining the team, but he responded instantly, saying yes. He traveled back and forth between his hometown of Pittsburgh and State College, sleeping at Berger's place while in State College.

“He did it because he wanted to get better, which in turn made everyone else better because as he got better, so did we,” Berger said.

They often talked about his club season and how passionate he was about helping them win, even though they were also bringing in a new goalie. He just wanted to win, even if he knew it would cost him playing time. His love for the team and not just himself showed a lot about his character, and that stood out to Berger. Berger joked to Guy Gadowsly, “Even if you offered him the third goalie spot, I don’t know if he would even take it.”

They kept in touch for a little bit. Still, nothing really came of it for a while until the fall when Seifarth reached out to Berger asking if he wanted to grab a coffee, and Berger had a feeling it may have been about that third spot, knowing it was opening up with Doug Dorr graduating, and it was. But he had not told Seifarth that he was planning on vouching for him either way because the guys loved skating with him, and he could tell he had the character that the coaching staff was looking for.

Low and behold, by spring 2024, he was skating with the team and offered the third goalie position. At this point, he was aware of the fact that he was likely never seeing the ice, as they ere bringing in Arsenii Sergeev from UCONN, who seemed to be very promising and still had Noah Grannan, who split the starting role the prior season with Liam Souliere so there did not seem to be much of a battle for the second spot. However that has not ended up being the case.

Early on in the game against Wisconsin, Sergeev got injured, and Grannan made his first appearance in net for the Nittany Lions, allowing four goals in a 6-3 loss for Penn State; Grannan started the following weekend against Michigan in both games and allowed six goals in the first game and seven in the second before Seifarth came in to relieve him just 3:23 into the third period.

"Gads just turned and said “John, you’re in,” and it caught me off guard. You know, I was just like, okay, let me try to go in there and make some stops. You know, it’s a little bit intimidating having Michigan be your first opponent. I won’t lie; those guys are pretty good. I tried not to think about that when you’re going in, you’re going in there. You just try to trust yourself, trust your instincts, trust your training, and trust your habits.” Seifarth said.

Seifarth made eight saves and allowed three goals, but making your first career appearance in a game when your team is down 7-5 is no easy task.

“I was so excited the whole time, really pumped up, just glad to be out there besides the guys I have gotten so close with over the last few months, and super, super grateful for the coaches for giving me the opportunity to be in net and trusting me with the net during a two-goal game. Trusting me with the net there, those few minutes meant the world to me.” Seifarth said.

The following Tuesday, the team faced Colgate. Sergeev was still injured, and Grannan had not been playing well. The team had their regularly scheduled meeting, and according to Seifarth, Gadowsky walked in and said something along the lines of, “We’re going to play this game, and we’re never going to forget how we win. We are going to make this one a special one. John, that’s why you’re going to start this one, buddy.”

He collected a 3-2 win, and his 35 saves and .936 save percentage earned him back-to-back starts in the first game. The following night, he recorded a 7-1 win, saving 22 shots for a save percentage of .957.

“We were all super excited. I think we were excited for him to get the opportunity to come in and play those games. He played awesome. I mean, the one save was SportsCenter No. 2. It was unbelievable.” Reese Laubach said.

With the uncertainty of if Sergeev will be healthy for Thursday's game against Ohio State, there’s a chance he will have his first Big Ten start this week.