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2021-22 Penn State Nittany Lions

Just looked at the pic of the student section at Saturday's game. It looked like a good turnout for the students. A chicken finger basket did the trick. Was the pep band there? Boy I'd like to see the pep band for at least one of the Syracuse's games.

I'm not sure if Mercyhurst played PSU vanilla. I had a hard time tracking exactly what they were doing if anything. I have a hard time believing that Sisti went vanilla, because that would be out of character for him. He is closing in on 400 wins.
 
Reddington said:
I'm not sure if Mercyhurst played PSU vanilla. I had a hard time tracking exactly what they were doing if anything. I have a hard time believing that Sisti went vanilla, because that would be out of character for him. He is closing in on 400 wins.
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The game got to a point where I started watching Mercyhurst more than Penn State, trying to see what they were trying to set up, and I had a hard time with it, too. Something just wasn't clicking for them, but credit to Penn State for smothering what Mercyhurst was trying to do. There's not a chance that Mike Sisti had his players on cruise control this weekend...he wouldn't do that anyway, but even if he were one to do that it wouldn't be this late in the season, and especially not with the standings in the CHA so close. Mercyhurst just wasn't clicking, or Penn State was doing something different that threw Mercyhurst off their game...I don't know.
 
You are right Sisti was trying to win, I just think he decided playing PSU straight up was the way to go and not the usual schematics he employs. No doubt PSU will get Nystrom the next time around.

As far as Syracuse, they always play PSU tough. This is another rivalry just as competitive as the Mercyhurst one is and you are absolutely right that this weekend will be for first place.

Kampersal is always talking about a faster start, but the first Mercyhurst game on Friday was more of the quagmire style I think he does better with and that style drives other teams nuts.
 
The importance of your league's final standings change this year w/o RMU. Normally, it is try to finish in the top two and get the quarterfinal bye. This year, the key is to finish first so that you get either Lindenwood or RIT, presumably the former, in the semis. Assuming a team can win that, then it only needs to beat one of the top three to reach the NCAAs. Coming in as the 2nd or 3rd seed, it likely requires beating two of the top three teams in the league, so a much tougher path. With the six-team format, both semis were usually competitive, but I don't know if that will be the case this time.
 
ARM said:
The importance of your league's final standings change this year w/o RMU. Normally, it is try to finish in the top two and get the quarterfinal bye. This year, the key is to finish first so that you get either Lindenwood or RIT, presumably the former, in the semis. Assuming a team can win that, then it only needs to beat one of the top three to reach the NCAAs. Coming in as the 2nd or 3rd seed, it likely requires beating two of the top three teams in the league, so a much tougher path. With the six-team format, both semis were usually competitive, but I don't know if that will be the case this time.
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Without Robert Morris in the mix, you're right - finishing first makes a much bigger difference this year (and next). As far as Lindenwood goes, they're never easy to figure out - as usual, they got crushed in game one at Syracuse this weekend, and then came back in game two and gave Syracuse all it could handle. You never know what Lindenwood is going to bring on any given day, so they might surprise whoever they get in the semifinals...I hope it's Syracuse. It seems like Penn State always ends up facing Syracuse in a do-or-die CHA tournament game, and heading for the bus immediately afterward, so I'd love to see Lindenwood end up taking them out of the tournament. Penn State really needs to handle Syracuse next weekend.
 
I'm not even going to try to do the usual late season guessing as to who finishes in what place, with the CHA going by winning percentages this season rather than straight points. Instead, here is what the top three teams have left, and how they did against them in their first matchups:
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PENN STATE - HAS SYRACUSE and RIT
-- split with Syracuse (1-0 OT win and 6-3 loss)
-- split with RIT (5-0 win and 2-2 OT tie)
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SYRACUSE - HAS PENN STATE and MERCYHURST
-- split with Penn State (6-3 win and 1-0 OT loss)
-- split with Mercyhurst (3-1 win and 3-0 loss)
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MERCYHURST - HAS RIT, SYRACUSE, and LINDENWOOD
-- swept RIT (3-1 win and 6-1 win)
-- split with Syracuse (3-0 win and 3-1 loss)
-- swept Lindenwood (3-1 win and 4-2 win)
-------------------------------------------------------------

The math whizzes can try to decide who has the best chance for the best winning percentage when it's all said and done...my brain works on the usual win/loss/tie point system, and checks out when it's winning percentages.
 
ZedLeppelin said:
You never know what Lindenwood is going to bring on any given day, so they might surprise whoever they get in the semifinals...I hope it's Syracuse.
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If Lindenwood and Syracuse are playing in one semi, the odds are that Mercyhurst and PSU would be in the other (unless RIT improves drastically). Call me crazy, but I'd rather play Lindenwood in an elimination game than Mercyhurst.
 
I don't know why these interviews have received zero press, but here are interviews with some Penn State women's hockey players. I wish schools would realize that fans like getting to hear from players off the ice, too, and would do more videos like these. I put these interviews in date order, and these are the only interviews this YouTube channel has with Penn State women's hockey players.

Rachel Weiss - February 24, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNqMGvc9qt0
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Julie Gough - March 30, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cf2qZXPcKE
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Josie Bothun - June 28, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f70y6dRx9B4
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Maeve Connolly - June 28, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBR5k1KtrUI
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Kiara Zanon and Mallory Uihlein - August 5, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNWaT-e-7z4
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Lyndie Lobdell - October 21, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8APUleuAZA
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Mya Vaslet - December 9, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFI7abD2sGk
 
Here's a good Penn State preview of this weekend's absolutely vital series against Syracuse on Friday and Saturday. This is probably the most important series of the season for Penn State. After this one, Penn State only has RIT left to play in conference games, and Syracuse still has to face Mercyhurst to end the regular season. Mercyhurst (after this weekend against RIT) still has Syracuse and Lindenwood to deal with.

https://gopsusports.com/news/2022/2/...e-matchup.aspx

And Josie Bothun has won her third of the four CHA Goalie of the Month awards so far this season:

https://gopsusports.com/news/2022/1/31/womens-ice-hockey-bothun-wins-two-cha-awards-this-week.aspx
 
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Edit: forget this whole post...my math was off. I thought the CHA was going by conference winning percentage, but they're going by conference points percentage.
 
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After one, it's Syracuse up 1-0 on Penn State on a Syracuse powerplay goal. Penn State leads the shots on goal 16-6, Syracuse has taken two penalties, and Penn State has taken one. The first half of the period saw a lot of offensive zone play for Penn State, but Syracuse started getting things going towards the end of the period. Nothing to point to so far, so we'll see what changes Jeff Kampersal wants to make for the second period.
 
After two, it's still 1-0 Syracuse. Penn State leads the shots on goal 31-17, but Ariel DeSmet is making some great saves for Syracuse. Penn State took three penalties in that period and now has four penalties to Syracuse's three. Like the announcer pointed out, Syracuse is doing good at making Penn State work from the perimeter more than in front of the net. I don't know what they can do differently in the third, because they're playing a very aggressive game so far, but just can't put pucks in the net.
 
And this one ends in a 1-1 tie after five minutes of OT. Penn State led the shots on goal 44-28. Rene Gangarosa blew the 3-on-3 time by taking a really dumb penalty in the offensive zone, which kept Penn State on a 4-on-3 penalty kill for two of the last three minutes of OT. Penn State took eight...eight...penalties, including a 10-minute from Karley Garcia, and Jeff Kampersal better get a handle on that before tomorrow's rematch. Syracuse is a very fast team and really good at long breakout passes, but Penn State played them close and shut down a lot of that quickness. So many chances to score tonight and they just couldn't get past Ariel DeSmet. Josie Bothun made some highlight saves, too.
 
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Shots were in the 40's to 28, not sure what game you watched. Bothun only gave up one sh goal. Kampersal can't score for the girls, I'm not sure what he needs to get a handle on. As far as ot, PSU should have scored twice if not three times. The former RMU goalie is tough. The Blocks were where they need to be. That was Machado's biggest goal of her career.

Zanon was awesome on faceoffs 17 wins 6 losses. Announcers were all over someone for not passing, if anything that is what needs to be handled.
 
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Reddington said:
Shots were in the 40's to 28, not sure what game you watched. Bothun only gave up one sh goal. Kampersal can't score for the girls, I'm not sure what he needs to get a handle on. As far as ot, PSU should have scored twice if not three times. The former RMU goalie is tough. The Blocks were where they need to be. That was Machado's biggest goal of her career.

Zanon was awesome on faceoffs 17 wins 6 losses. Announcers were all over someone for not passing, if anything that is what needs to be handled.
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His post says shots were 44-28 and Kampersall needs to get a handle on all the penalties PSU took.
 
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