By Mike Marzelli
Collegian Staff
A trap.
The only way an undefeated, nationally-ranked team can fall to a struggling squad is by falling into a trap.
Riding the nation’s longest winning streak and taking on a struggling Penn State squad, the Minutemen had plenty of reasons to believe they would be able to shake off the pesky Nittany Lions, who had been beating them to ground balls, dominating time of possession and taking it to them all game long, and avoid such a trap.
But the big goal they had gotten all season long wasn’t there, the important defensive stop they could always count on didn’t happen, and before they knew it, Penn State’s Will Jones skipped a shot past keeper Bill Schell with 3:25 left in the final frame. So when junior Jeff Zywicki’s last-second tying attempt slipped just wide of the cage, securing an 11-10 upset win for the Lions, the loss that hadn’t been there all season…was.
They were trapped.
“We played hard out there,” UMass coach Greg Cannella said. “But give Penn State credit, they did what they needed to do to win. They beat us to ground balls, forced turnovers and were aggressive on the offensive end. We were definitely prepared for how aggressive they were, but we just never took control. They definitely took this one from us.”
“I don’t think it was really them winning as much as it was us losing,” senior Kevin Leveille said. “They had the ball on offense a lot, and that wears a defense down. It’s not supposed to, but it does.”
Both teams came out of the gates firing on all cylinders in the first period. After Jones opened the scoring and gave Penn State (2-5 1-3 ECAC) an early 1-0 lead, Chris Doyle and Kevin Leveille both netted goals to give the Minutemen (7-1 1-1 ECAC) a 2-1 advantage. However, the Lions would jump back in front 3-2 on two Nate Whitaker goals just 10 seconds apart.
The lead was short lived, as Zywicki tied the game at 3-3 just 13 seconds later. Senior Chris Fiore gave the lead back to UMass with a top-shelf rocket past Penn State keeper Chris Garrity, and after PSU again took a slim one-goal advantage, Leveille and junior Kevin Glenz followed Fiore’s lead, beating Garrity up high for a 6-5 cushion after one period.
“We knew that the pace of the game would change after the first quarter,” Cannella said. “They didn’t want to run up and down with us in the second period, so they went to a slower and more deliberate set offense and put the pressure on us defensively.”
And change it did. Freshman Nate Whitaker accounted for all the Nittany Lions offense in the period, scoring two goals, including a dazzling over-the-shoulder flip past Schell. However Sophomore Gene Tundo bounced a shot past Garrity with only nine seconds remaining in the half, sending the teams into the locker room tied at seven.
“We knew [Whitaker] would be aggressive offensively and obviously he was,” Cannella said. “But he wasn’t what beat us, they beat us as a whole and we beat ourselves.”
The Minutemen took leads of 8-7 and 9-8 in the third period, but Penn State’s Marshall Feldman scored his second goal of the third period with 2:22 remaining, again tying the game at nine heading into the final session.
State took its first lead of the second half on a Jones goal at the 12:48 mark of the final period, but UMass sophomore Chris Doyle’s goal with 10:32 remaining knotted things at 10 and set up Jones’ winner for the Nittany Lions.
Zywicki led the Maroon and White in scoring for the sixth straight game with two goals and two assists, while Leveille added a hat trick and Doyle netted two goals. Whitaker paced the Nittany Lions with five goals.
“You never know of any positive effects a loss like this might have until the next game,” Cannella said. “So we just need to get back to practice and work on some things and we’ll see.”
“You just hope this fires the guys up,” Leveille said. “Hopefully this will put a fire in our bellies to go out there and work harder.”
The Minutemen return to action this Saturday against the University of Maryland-Baltimore County in their second consecutive ECAC matchup.
