Penn State Falls to UMass Lowell

Penn State faced #13 ranked University of Massachusetts Lowell this weekend in State College, Pa. The first of their two meetings was Thursday night at 7 p.m.

With a goal scored by Adam Chapie at 1:51 of the first, UMass set the tone for the game early on. The remainder of the first period was scoreless.

In the second, Scott Wilson scored at 5:56 to give UMass Lowell a 2-0 lead. Exactly two minutes later, they scored again with a goal from Derek Arnold. Arnold scored the fourth goal of the game late in the third period to give the Riverhawks a 4-0 win at Pegula Ice Arena.

Some stats from the game: Penn State out-shot UMass 37-28. Penn State was 0 for 5 on the power play and UMass was 0 for 6 (the Nittany Lions have had some quality penalty kill practice since the start of the season). Penn State also won 54 percent of the faceoffs. Despite these good efforts, Penn State was no match for the speed of UMass.

The two teams met again on Friday night; each with a different goalie between the pipes. For UMass Lowell, Doug Carr got the start (3-2) and for PSU it was Eamon McAdam (0-3).

UMass Lowell took another early lead with a goal from Joe Gambardella at 4:26 of the first period.

In the second, Penn State scored a power play goal by Eric Scheid. Less than a minute later, Stephen Buco scored to give UMass Lowell the lead again. Adam Chapie scored his 6th of the year at 17:50 of the first to put UMass Lowell up 3-1.

The second period was scoreless, and Penn State made a final push in the third. David Goodwin scored a Penn State goal at 12:17. After a few great chances late in the period, PSU was not able to capitalize and fell to UMass Lowell 3-2.

Again, Penn State took too many penalties. On Friday night they gave the River Hawks five power plays. Fortunately for the Nittany Lions, UMass was only able to capitalize on one out of their 11 total power play opportunities on the weekend.

UMass Lowell advanced to 8-4-0 on the season while Penn State fell to 3-5-1.

Penn State will take on Union next on November 30 at Pegula.