ST. LOUIS, Mo. – No. 12/5 Penn State drops a 3-1 decision to No. 8/3 Boston University in the national semifinals on Thursday evening from the Enterprise Center
The Nittany Lions see their season end at 22-14-4 while the Terriers improve to 24-13-2 and will face Western Michigan in the national championship game at 6:30 p.m. CT/7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday night.
HOW IT HAPPENED
After a scoreless first period, BU got on the board first less than two minutes into the middle frame as Nittany Lion junior net-minder Arsenii Sergeev (Yaroslavl, Russia) made a save, but lost track of the puck as it sat in the goal crease and was poked in by Jack Hughes for the 1-0 lead just 95 ticks in.
The Terriers extended the lead to 2-0 midway through the second period as Cole Eiserman finished into a yawning net past the glove of Sergeev during an odd-man rush at the 10:44 mark.
Penn State cut the deficit in half early in the third period as freshman Nicholas DeGraves (Edmonton, Alberta) cashed in a rebound after senior Ben Schoen’s (Maumee, Ohio) initial bid was turned aside for the 2-1 score at the 2:12 mark.
Jack Harvey hit the empty net with 59 seconds left in the game to account for the 3-1 final.
GOALTENDING
Sergeev drops to 19-9-4 on the year after making 31 saves in the loss while his counterpart, Mikhail Yegorov stopped 32 shots in the victory to move to 11-5-1 on the year.
NOTES
Both teams had 33 shots on goal while neither team converted with the man-advantage as Penn State was 0-for-2 and BU 0-for-3.
With one assist, senior Simon Mack (Brockville, Ontario) now has 65 career points to rank third all-time for Nittany Lion defenseman scoring while his 27 assists on the season to rank tied for third for single-season assists in Penn State history and the most by a Nittany Lion defenseman.
Freshman classmates JJ Wiebusch (Verona, Wis.) and Charlie Cerrato (Fallston, Md.) both see their career long eight game point streaks snapped.
Penn State moves to 4-4 all-time in the NCAA Tournament games with the loss.