No. 18 Men’s Hockey Forces Overtime Late, But Falls to Wisconsin, 5-4 – Penn State

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – No. 18 Penn State erased a pair of third period deficits to force overtime, but couldn’t escape with the victory as Daniel Laatsch scored the OT winner with just over a minute remaining in the extra session to give Wisconsin the 5-4 victory in Big Ten Conference action on Friday evening inside Pegula Ice Arena.

Penn State drops to 4-4-0 on the year and 0-3-0-0-1-0 in Big Ten play with the loss while the Badgers improve to 3-8-0 overall and 2-5-0-1-3-0 in conference action with the victory.

HOW IT HAPPENED

Wisconsin opened the scoring early in the first period as Ryland Mosley was left alone in front and he redirected a point shot by Quinn Finley for the 1-0 edge at the 3:27 mark.

Penn State evened the score late in the frame with a powerplay tally as senior Simon Mack (Brockville, Ontario) fed sophomore Aiden Fink (Calgary, Alberta) and he skated below the right dot firing a laser shortside and over the glove of Badger net-minder Tommy Scarfone for the 1-1 score at the 18:35 mark.

The Badgers regained the lead late in the second period with a pair of goals in just over three minutes as Sawyer Scholl sent a rebound into a yawning net after Anthony Kehrer’s initial shot was turned aside at the 13:18 mark before Cody Laskosky slipped into the slot and beat Nittany Lion junior goaltender Arsenii Sergeev (Yaroslavl, Russia) under the blocker for the 3-1 advantage at 16:43 of the middle stanza.

Penn State mounted a third period comeback with a transition goal as freshman JJ Wiebusch (Verona, Wis.) paitiently outwaited the defense before saucering a pass to the front of the net to find classmate Charlie Ceratto (Fallston, Md.) for the redirect and the 3-2 deficit just 1:43 into the final frame.

The Nittany Lions continued to push as senior Ben Schoen (Maumee, Ohio) was the beneficiary of a strong forecheck to secure the equalizer as he collected the puck in the slot before firing past the blocker of Scarfone for the 3-3 score at the 6:25 mark.

Wisconsin got one back midway through the period to regain the one-goal margin as Ryan Bottterill scored a goal against the run of play during a modified odd-man rush for the 4-3 advantage at the 11:20 mark.

Then with the goalie pulled and on the powerplay, the hosts once again pulled the game even as senior Danny Dzhaniyev (Brooklyn, N.Y.) redirected a point offering in the low slot by Mack for the 4-4 tie with just 50.6 seconds remaining in the third period.

Nearing the end of a…