No. 11 Penn State hockey upset by winless team

One night after a huge offensive showing, the No. 11 Penn State men’s hockey team struggled to hit the net.

American International, a team that hasn’t had a winning season this century, stunned the Nittany Lions 3-2 in overtime Friday night at Pegula Ice Arena, scoring the program’s first win over a top-15 team in better than a decade.

“AIC played a tremendous game and they deserved that win,” Nittany Lion coach Guy Gadowsky told the media after the game. “Right now we aren’t all pulling the same weight offensively.”

Darius Davidson scored the winner 3:47 into the extra period for the Yellow Jackets (1-5-1), beating Penn State for just the second time in six meetings. The only other AIC win in the series came in 2013 in the first Division I game in Nittany Lion history.

Penn State (3-3), which won Thursday night’s contest 7-5, got goals from Cole Hults and Nate Sucese, while Chris Funkey made 21 saves in his first start of the season and just the fourth start of the junior’s career.

Zackarias Skog made 29 saves for the Yellow Jackets, who also got goals from Brennan Kapcheck and Dominik Florian, with the latter tying the game in the third period to force the extra session.

Penn State was held to 29 shots.

Player of the Game

Davidson spoiled the Nittany Lions’ night by pouncing on a turnover and turning it into his breakaway goal, the second score of the freshman forward’s season.

Scoring notes

Hults netted his second goal in as many nights, with the freshman defenseman converting a one-timer on a power play after some sparkling passing from Denis Smirnov and Erik Autio. Sucese posted his goal with a wrist shot deflected off an AIC stick. Smirnov and Trevor Hamilton picked up assists.

Smirnov failed to score in a fifth straight game, but he still has a five-game point streak.

The Yellow Jackets’ other goals came from a Kapcheck rebound in the second and Florian slipping the puck under Funkey, trickling just over the goal line, at 11:59 of the third.

Up next

Penn State returns to Big Ten play next week, hosting Michigan on Friday and Saturday.

This story was originally published October 21, 2017 at 12:20 AM with the headline "No. 11 Penn State hockey upset by winless team."