Freshman Brody Stevens rushed the goal to snipe the Spartans first goal of the night past Penn State’s sophomore goaltender Peyton Jones, but was not enough to beat the Nittany Lions in the second night of the series.
The Spartans fell to the Nittany Lions 3-2 on the final home game of the season.
“(Minney) battled and he hasn’t had a lot of ice and that’s not always easy to do,” head coach Danton Cole said. “I wish we could of gotten him a win.”
Before the second period, Penn State kept the lead at 2-1 with the Spartans struggling on their power play to look for the tying goal. With the a player in the box, the Nittany Lions had two rushes to the net on senior goaltender Ed Minney during their penalty kill.
The third goal was scored by Penn State’s freshman forward Alex Limoges tipping it to his teammate junior defenseman Kevin Kerr to make it 3-1. The goal remained as it was under review for being offsides.
“They pushed back for 40 minutes there,” senior defenseman Carson Gatt said. “It seemed like they were winning a majority of the battles kinda like we won a majority of the battles last night.”
About 34 seconds into the Spartans’ sixth power play of the night, sophomore forward Patrick Khodorenko brought the puck up the middle shot it past Jones to make it 3-2.
In his final game at home, Minney made a total of 37 saves in between the pipes of Munn Ice Arena.
“We had some really good chances, but just couldn’t bury them,” Minney said. “It was kind of a goalie battle, but I gotta say our [defense] played really well.”
The Spartans will travel to Notre Dame on Feb. 23 for a 7:35 p.m puck drop to play the first of their two games of the regular season.
“We’ll keep moving forward and get ready for Notre Dame,” Cole said. “I think we’ll be a dangerous team.”
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