The Clemson club ice hockey team defeated the Penn State Harrisburg Nittany Lions 2-1 in its second match of the National Tournament. With this win, No. 31 Clemson pulled off an upset against No. 15 Penn State Harrisburg to move to 1-1-0 in the tournament.
The first period featured minimal action–including only three total penalties–until Clemson left-winger Thomas Papa put the Tigers on the board with 7:46 left, assisted by forward Conor Brydges and defenseman Benjamin Brucker.
Papa’s goal sparked a wave of offensive intensity for Clemson. Two minutes later, Captain Jack Owen-Turner, assisted by centermen John McKeon and Mike McKeon, increased the Tigers’ lead to 2-0. Clemson carried its lead into the second and third periods.
“I thought we had a lot of momentum (against Niagara) yesterday,” Papa said. “I thought we played one of our best games of the season, honestly. Niagara’s ranked really high, and we’re ranked pretty low… We took a lot of momentum from that game into today, and…obviously, it worked out.”
The score remained the same until the final 32 seconds of the game when Penn State right-winger Cam Moore slid the puck past goaltender Josh Bailey. Bailey saved 27 of 28 shots from the Nittany Lions. Comparatively, Clemson put up a dominant performance with 49 total shots.
“It definitely means a lot to us,” Owen-Turner told the College Hockey Federation following the win. “We felt a little disrespected coming into the tournament being the 31 seed. We think we definitely have one of the hardest schedules in the country; we play teams like Tampa, (South Carolina) and Georgia every game, so we felt a little disrespected by the ranking, and we came here to prove a point. And we did that tonight, so we’re just gonna keep it going into tomorrow.”