With the new year upon us, Penn State hockey is in full swing in the second half of their season and last weekend, the Nittany Lions continued their conference schedule with a two-game home set against No. 13 Notre Dame.
Coming in, the Fighting Irish were 13-6 overall and 6-3 in Big Ten play, but just a 2-2 conference record on the road.
Penn State was 3-7 in conference play coming into the weekend and needed to salvage at least one game against the top-15 Fighting Irish, but unfortunately for the Nittany Lions, they came up empty-handed, losing both games at Pegula Ice Arena.
On Friday, Notre Dame won a close 4-2 game, using two third-period goals to come up victorious.
The Fighting Irish went up 2-0 in the second period with goals from Max Ellis and Grant Silianoff, but the Nittany Lions answered with two of their own: one at the 4:37 mark of the period from Adam Pilewicz and a last-minute period goal from Tyler Paquette.
That would be as close as Penn State got as Landon Slaggert scored just over 13 minutes into the third period and Ellis netted his second goal of the game, an empty-net goal to put the game away for the Fighting Irish.
Saturday was a different story as Penn State took a 3-1 lead early in the second period thanks to two goals from Jimmy Dowd Jr.
Notre Dame answered back, tying the game with under four minutes left in the second period before Clayton Phillips put the Nittany Lions back on top, 4-3, going into the third.
A near-flawless period of hockey for Penn State was squandered with nearly two minutes left in regulation as Cam Burke tied the game at 4-4 for the Fighting Irish.
Friday’s first star, Max Ellis, came back to haunt the Nittany Lions in overtime, scoring the overtime winner with just 0.2 left on the OT clock.
Penn State is now 12-10-0 on the season and 3-9 in Big Ten play as they travel to Ann Arbor next weekend to take on a top-5 opponent in Michigan.
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