Penn State won their fourth consecutive Atlantic Hockey America tournament punching their ticket to the NCAA women's hockey national championship tournament.
The Penn State Nittany Lions women's hockey team held off a late push from Mercyhurst to win the Atlantic Hockey America (AHA) championship punching their ticket to the NCAA national championship tournament.
Penn State got out to a 3-0 lead before Mercyhurst clawed back, but Penn State held on for the 3-2 win.
Grad student Mya Vaslet opened the scoring with a helper from Matilde Fantin in the first period. Fantin found Vaslet in the slot where she fired home the opening tally.
In the second period, Nicole Hall redirected a Sophie Morrow point shot after Leah Stecker went D-to-D on the power play to extend the lead to 2-0.
Later in the second, Katelyn Roberts put a pass through traffic giving Penn State a 3-0 lead, which would hold up for the win, but not before a late Mercyhurst push.
Mercyhurst put the pressure on in the third period as Abby Poitras scored with 3:45 remaining in the game. With goaltender Magdalena Luggin out of the net Berlin Lolacher pulled the Lakers within one with 1:19 remaining.
Mercyhurst outshot Penn State 16-6 in the third, but it wasn't enough
Penn State netminder Kate DeSa made 29 saves in the win to lift the Nittany Lions to their fourth consecutive conference title. Luggin made 30 saves in the loss.
With the win, Penn State earned an automatic bid to the NCAA national championships, which they'll host later this month.
Later in the day, Ohio State became the second team to punch their ticket to the national championships upsetting #1 ranked Wisconsin 2-1.