In almost an identical fashion to Penn State’s (2-0-0)  6-3 victory Friday night, where it scored four unanswered goals in the third period, ASU (0-2-0) once again collapsed in the third, allowing another four unanswered goals after holding the Lions to zero through the first 40 minutes. 

With a quiet first 10 minutes of the game, the Sun Devils tried to gather momentum on the power play after the Nittany Lions' freshman forward Shea Van Olm went in the box on a cross-checking penalty.

While this was ASU’s time to shine, those next two minutes were all about Penn State’s penalty kill.

On that chance, the Sun Devils were only able to get two shots on goal, while the Nittany Lions were able to get just as many going the other way, with good looks coming from freshman left winger Gavin McKenna and junior center Reese Laubach.

After both teams went into the locker room tied at zero, ASU proved once again that the second period is its time to make magic happen. 

Three minutes into the second period, the Sun Devils' senior left winger and captain Bennett Shimeck opened up the scoring as he found a nice, wide-open net over Penn State’s sophomore goaltender Kevin Reidler’s left shoulder.

The second goal for ASU came with 5:41 seconds left in the third period, when Schimek was able to connect with senior left wing and assistant captain Cruz Lucius for Lucius’ first goal of the season, leaving the Sun Devils with a 2-0 lead going into the third period.

Although the Nittany Lions were goalless in the first two periods, unlike Friday night, when they had the 2-0 lead heading into the second, Penn State only needed 20 minutes to turn the tables in their favor.

Penalties played a huge factor in the third, with all of ASU’s penalty minutes occurring in the last 20 minutes of play.

It was sophomore center Nic Chin-DeGraves who set the tone for the rest of the night, opening up the Nittany Lions' scoring on a short-handed goal while junior center Sean McGurn sat in the box for the Sun Devils on a slashing call.

Almost exactly three minutes later, sophomore right wing JJ Weibusch tied the score for Penn State with 14 and a half minutes to go.

The last three minutes really proved to be disastrous for ASU as junior defenseman Anthony Dowd took an elbowing call, giving the Nittany Lions the man advantage for the crucial last minutes.

Not even a full minute later, McKenna sends a one-timer to the back of the net, silencing the “overrated” chants echoing through the arena, securing the lead for Penn State, and an empty netter from junior left wing Dane Dowiak put the final nail in the coffin.

Although this weekend ended in a sweep for the Sun Devils, physicality was a significant contributor to ASU’s increased success in game two compared to their first outing. 

While aggressiveness was increased, the Sun Devils' head coach, Greg Powers, thought they played a disciplined game.

“We got a big physical team, guys like Morrell and Nash, and Sammy Alfano, Noah Powell, and Kipkie on the back end. We have a really, really good young team here,” Powers said. “ I thought we were really good and physical tonight, physical but disciplined, which is what you want.”

Coach Powers and Lucius highlighted closing out games as a theme for the team to emphasize going forward.

“We just weren’t hard enough. We got away from our game a little bit. We didn’t execute our chances…” Lucius said. “All of our guys can play, all of our guys can make a big impact, and we know that.”