Ice Hockey

Shutout loss ends tough weekend for Syracuse hockey

Tough weekend for Syracuse hockey: shutout loss caps series vs. Penn State

Syracuse Women’s Ice Hockey faced a challenging weekend, falling to No. 9 Penn State in back-to-back games. 

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Ian Rempe
Syracuse’s Essica Cheung (10) Penn State’s Tiffany Hill (20) battle for the puck. Cheung was supported by Charlotte Hallett (22) and Celia Wiegand (9).

Amid the second half of the 2024-25 season, Syracuse Ice Hockey endured another tough loss at Tennity.

The Orange fell 4-0 to No. 9 Penn State in the final game of a weekend series Saturday afternoon. After dropping the first game 1-0 in overtime Friday night, SU hoped for a statement win against the top team in the AHA.

“We’ve had a tough start to the second half, but with that, we are a team that can be in games at the end of the game,” head coach Britni Smith said.

“For us, it’s just all a part of our process. Happy with how we competed through most of the last five games, and we just got to continue to focus on getting the next one when it comes.”

Unfortunately, that was not the case for SU during this outing.

The game started pretty even, with both sides having the same amount of shots on goal. Eight minutes into the first period, Syracuse picked up its first power play off a tripping penalty by Penn State forward Tessa Janecke. 

The game took a turn for the worse as the Orange allowed an unassisted short-handed goal to Freshman forward Grace Outwater. After two more power plays, one for each team, the game was 1-0 at the end of the first period, in favor of the Nittany Lions.

Syracuse looked to regain momentum in the second period since it started in the middle of its second power play. However, that was where things got out of hand.

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Ian Rempe
Penn state’s 4th goal scored by Grace Outwater (8) on Allie Kelley (35) at 5:06 in the third.

Penn State shot the puck thirteen times in the period, in comparison to three chances for SU. These attempts resulted in two goals for Penn State and another shutout period for the Syracuse. 

Tessa Janecke got her revenge for her early penalty with a goal just two minutes into the period assisted by Junior forward Katelyn Roberts. Just when Syracuse thought the scoring was over for the period, freshman forward Nicole Hall sniped the puck into the top of the net; by far the “dirtiest” goal of the day for the Nittany Lions. 

The Orange were down by three goals to start the final period of play. After an early power play in favor of SU, optimism started to trickle back into Tennity. That ounce of belief did not last very long, as Syracuse came up short again, and Penn State responded right back with another goal by Outwater.

After what would be the Nittany Lions’ final goal of the game, the Orange decided to pull their starting goalie, Allie Kelley. Sophomore Bella Gould would finish the game in front of the net. 

Over the rest of the game, Syracuse earned one more power play opportunity. Hope was lost after the switch at goalie, and the Orange went on to get shut at home for the second game in a row. Even though Syracuse struggled on the power play, Smith remained calm when the question was brought up postgame.

“I thought our power play today was better than yesterday,” Smith remarked. “Unfortunate goal against us for sure, but things like that happen. Nothing to worry about, we will get back to it.”

As conference play starts to get back in full swing, Syracuse will take the trip west to Rochester for a double header weekend against RIT on Friday.