“It was just very chaotic,” is how Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold described the Bobcats 3-2 win over Penn State on Saturday.
With 14 new Bobcats on the roster this year, the team struggled with consistency throughout the game.
“It was a bad game from my perspective,” said Pecknold. “We need to get better. We need to mature as a team… We’ll get there.”
It wasn’t until over halfway through the first period that the Bobcats struck when Jeremy Wilmer chipped the puck in from the side of the net to earn his first goal in navy and gold.
“He’s a high-end player for sure,” said Pecknold. “He’s got great offensive instincts, he makes a lot of plays and he’s going to get a lot better for us as the year goes on.”
Minutes later, Andon Cerbone added to the Bobcats lead after an assist from Cooper Moore and Charlie Leddy. The team would enter into the second period with a 2-0 lead.
Quinnipiac continued right where they left off at the start of the second period.
Wilmer was back for more, as Mason Marcellus stripped the puck away from a Nittany Lion and then passed it off to Davis Pennington. Pennington ripped a slap shot to the front of the net where Wilmer was there to finish it off and make it a 3-0 Bobcat lead.
“Yeah obviously it was nice to get the first couple out of the way, but I think we still have more to give,” Wilmer said.
Both the Nittany Lions and the Bobcats remained quiet throughout the rest of the period, but Penn State wasn’t ready to go home yet.
In the third period, they marked a whole new hockey game for both teams, as Penn State came alive. Less than a minute into the third period, the Nittany Lions capitalized on their power play and Ben Schoen scored their first goal, with assists by Aiden Fink and Reese Laubach.
Penn State was not done yet with Quinnipiac. Soon after, Danny Dzhaniyev brought the puck around the back of the net and put it past Matej Marinov to make it a 3-2 game.
“We just had a lot of panic and our management was an issue,” Pecknold said.
Penn State’s second goal of the game put a fire under Quinnipiac. With the Bobcats’ security of a three-goal lead gone, they looked to Marinov to help them finish the win.
“We made a couple of mistakes at the end of the game, but he [Marinov] was there to back us up,” said Wilmer. “He [Marinov] was awesome.”
Marinov was able to help hold Penn State off for the remainder of the game and allowed Quinnipiac to finish off the home opener with a win. The Bobcats will be back in action next weekend for a two-game series at the University of Maine.
