Temple (7-4-3) lost to Penn State Sunday at Northeast Skate Zone by a final score of 7-4.
“We started out the first period on fire,” sophomore forward and captain Greg Malinowski said. “Best period we’ve ever played. Then we got too involved with the ref’s and took ourselves out of the game.”
To start off the first period, Temple quickly committed a penalty and Penn State would capitalize on the power play and took an early 1-0 lead.
Temple responded and played well throughout the rest of the period. With 5:59 left in the first, senior forward Kurt Noce buried the equalizing goal for his first goal of the season.
The Owls continued to put the pressure on the Nittany Lions after the equalizing goal and scored again when sophomore forward Dave Brewer put a top-shelf shot for a 2-1 Temple lead.
To put the exclamation point on a strong period for the Owls, junior forward Stephen Kennedy scored his 17th goal of the season with 18 seconds left in the period.
“The first period we came out playing awesome,” coach Ryan Frain said. “We got on the board early, we just couldn’t keep the momentum going.”
Temple’s strong first period did not carry over into the second as it was all Penn State scoring three unanswered goals in the period.
The third period did not start off any better for the Owls, less than a minute into the period Penn State scored again to take a 5-3 advantage. With the Owls once again on the penalty kill, Penn State would tally another power play girl to take a three goal lead. Soon after, Penn State would score again for what was there sixth unanswered goal, and a 7-3 advantage.
Temple would respond with a power play goal of its own by junior defenseman Chris Carnivale but it was too little too late as Temple fell to the Nittany Lions 7-4.
Penalties haunted the Owls all game long, and f dwere punished twice by Penn State’s power play. Putting it simply, Frain plainly said, “penalties killed us.”
After losing back to back home games this weekend, the Owls will look to get back on the winning track Friday night in an away contest at Rider. The puck will drops at 8:30 p.m..
Samuel Matthews can be reached at samuel.matthews@temple.edu or on Twitter @SJMatthews13.
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