The Robert Morris women’s hockey team took on Penn State in a weekend series at the 84 Lumber Arena Friday and Saturday night.

The club fell 5-0 in the contest on Friday night.  Coming into the home series, the Colonials had gone 8-0-0 against the Nittany Lions.

Penn State registered its first goal late in the first period when Shannon Yoxheimer scored from the right faceoff circle.

Penn State would go on to score on shots from Hannah Hoenshell, Micayla Catanzariti, and Amy Peterson. Yoxheimer would later score the fifth and final goal on the game in the third period.

Although the Colonials outshot the Nittany Lions 42-21, they were unable to put the puck in the net. One highlight came in the faceoff category, where they won 33 of the 51 to the take the advantage. Sophomore Mackenzie Johnston won 13-of -18, and sophomore Rikki Meilleur won 10-of-13.

Jessica Dodds let in 5 goals on 16 shots. She was later replaced by sophomore backup goaltender Carly Catherine with 3:15 left in the game. For Catherine, it was her first regular season appearance in net for the Colonials.

Revenge came on Saturday.

The Colonials came out with a statement. They applied pressure on offense, constantly testing Penn State goaltender Hannah Ehresmann.

“We definitely knew it shouldn’t have been a 5-0 game, we easily could have beat them, so we really came back with a lot of momentum and energy to get that win back,” said freshman Amanda Panteleo.

A Robert Morris turnover paved the way for Penn State’s Laura Bowman to score shorthanded early in the first period.

Sophomore Rikki Meilleur would get revenge on the second Penn State power play by scoring a shorthanded tally with assists going to Katie Fergus and Mikaela Lowater.

Penn State answered and went up 2-1 at almost the half way point of the second period. However, Robert Morris stormed back.

Goals from Jessica Gazzola, Rebecca Vint and Mackenzie Johnston paved the way for a 4-2 victory.

“We bounced back well and we knew it was the last game of the year, this half of the season and it was big to get this win,” Johnston said.

Vint’s empty netter marked her thirteenth career goal against the Nittany Lions. Robert Morris is now 5-11-3 on the season and are currently 2-4-2 in CHA conference play.

The next RMU home game will be exhibition action against Windsor on January 3rd. The next regular season outing will be a weekend series at RIT on January 9th and 10th.