Rochester native Kevin Wall scored a pair of goals and an assist in his homecoming and Austin Calder added a couple of goals as No. 5 Penn State cruises by No. 20 RIT 6-1 at the Gene Polisseni Center in Rochester, New York on Friday evening.
Penn State opened the scoring when Kevin Wall connected on a slapshot which was assisted by Connor MacEachern and was deflected off a Tiger and past goalie Tommy Scarfone for his tenth goal of the season. Penn State (16-5) controlled the action for much of the period. RIT (12-5) hardly had any odd man rushes and was on its heels all period.
The first intermission had to be started early because a crushing hit cause damaged to the door at the RIT bench with 2:53 left in the first period.
When play resumed Tyler Paquette scored on a breakaway goal to extend its lead to 2-0 which was unassisted. 19 seconds later, Calder scored off a rebound for a goal which was assisted by Ture Linden.
Penn State led 3-0 after the first period. Penn State led RIT 17-6 on shots on goal, but RIT won the faceoff battle 13-7 in the first period.
Early in the second period, RIT got on the board on a shorthanded goal by Tyler Mahan assisted by which was unassisted. RIT settled down and did a better job controlling the action. Later in the second period, Wall scored his second goal of the game and 11th goal of the season on a breakaway goal assisted by Ryan Kirwan and MacEachern. RIT had a power play opportunity when Penn State got called for tripping but failed to capitalize.
Penn State got on the power play when Andrew Petrucci got called for a game misconduct for a hit on a hit to the head on a Penn State player, and it capitalized with Calder’s second goal of the game assisted by Danny Dzahniyev and Linden.
Penn State led 5-1 at the end of the second period, outshooting RIT 30-16 through two periods.
Penn State was cruising in the third period and continued to control the action and stay aggressive in the third period. Penn State extended its lead to 6-1 when MacEachern scored on a breakaway. Wall and Conner McMenamin assisted on the goal. Penn State went on the power play again but failed to capitalize, but it was inconsequential, and Penn State ran out the clock for the decisive victory.
Penn State and RIT will complete their home-and-home series Saturday evening at the Pegula Ice Arena.
Twitter: @bwalkerdadon
