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UNIVERSITY PARK -- After Thursday night's celebration for the Penn State men's ice hockey team, Friday proved to be frustrating to the Nittany Lions.
In an overall sloppy game and a costly slip in overtime, Penn State fell 3-2 to American International.
The Lions got off to a slow start offensively, failing to register a shot for nearly seven minutes at the start of regulation. But once the Lions got off their first shot, they began to control the game.
After a charging penalty against AIC, Penn State pounced quickly. Nice combination passing between Erik Autio, Denis Smirnov and Cole Hults led to Hults finding the net to give the Lions a 1-0 lead.
This was the second straight game with a goal for the Minnesota native.
The second period began relatively slowly with very few chances for either team and the Lions were struggling to find their rhythm. With fewer than nine minutes to play Penn State goaltender Chris Funkey almost made a costly mistake with a poor pass that nearly led to an AIC goal as the net was wide open.
Funkey was given the start over Peyton Jones, who allowed five goals the night before. Outside of that poor pass, Funkey played fairly well, finishing the game with 21 saves and impressing team captain James Robinson with his play despite the loss.
"I thought he played excellent tonight," Robinson said. "He's a guy that everyone loves and we love going to battle for him. It's disappointing not to get that win for him."
With roughly six minutes remaining in the second period, Chase Berger found an open Denis Smirnov in front of the net, but the shot was saved. That miss cost the Lions as AIC started to mount pressure with an attack of its own.
AIC's Brennan Kapche found the back of the net after being the first to get to the puck off a Funkey save to tie the game. AIC outshot Penn State 10-9 in the second period.
The third period like the first two started off slowly but a scary moment for the Lions occurred with 14:39 remaining. Last season's top scorer, Denis Smirnov, took an errant stick to the face and the refs let the game play on, much to the crowd's displeasure. Smirnov stayed down for about a minute; he later returned and made an impact.
The play seemed to spark the Lions' attack as they came back with a few good chances with the puck staying in the Yellow Jackets' zone. Nate Sucese, who missed last night's game due to suspension, restored the Lions' lead with a sharp angle shot from the left wing with 11:56 remaining in the game. Smirnov and Trevor Hamilton were credited with assists.
However, the spark and the lead did not last very long. AIC's Dominik Florian got the better of Funkey with eight minutes left in regulation to once again tie the game.
Later in the period, Liam Folkes had a golden opportunity right in front of the net to give Penn State back the lead but his shot went wide. With neither team able to take the lead before time expired, the game went to a five-minute, sudden-death overtime.
AIC had the better chances to score, putting tons of pressure on Penn State's defense. In a shocking twist at the end, defenseman Kris Myllari slipped, giving AIC's Darius Davidson a one-on-one at Funkey. Davidson buried the shot and silenced Pegula Ice Arena as he gave the Yellow Jackets their first win of the season.
Penn State coach Guy Gadowsky hopes the loss will provide a good lesson for both the players and the staff and hope the team can get back to playing the style of hockey that work so well last season.
"We scored a lot of goals from the paint last year and we're not getting that done this year," he said. "We're not playing the Penn State Hockey that made us successful last year. I hope this is a great lesson. I think AIC played great and they deserved to win. But I hope we learn we all have to pull the same weight and get back to playing Penn State Hockey to be successful."
Penn State will look to rebound when it hosts Michigan in a two-game series Oct. 27-28.