Penn State Wins Turnover-Filled 10-6 Game Over Army

Saturday’s NCAA tournament first round game between Army and eighth-seeded Penn State wasn’t always pretty. One could argue a certain amount of chaos plays well into each team’s plans.

But one team emerged with a clear advantage from the occasional slop. Host Penn State dominated the Black Knights in shots (55-29), faceoffs (16-4) and ground balls (37-26), giving them enough possession time to overcome a 20-save showing from Sean Byrne in a 10-6 win in Happy Valley.

Penn State advances to the quarterfinals at Hofstra next weekend to play the winner of Marist and top-seeded Princeton. The Nittany Lions didn’t play Marist this year — but they did hand Princeton one of its two losses, 13-7, on Feb. 14.

By the time Penn State went ahead 4-1 on Andrew Beard’s goal with 9:07 left in the second quarter, it looked like Army was already in for a long day. Offense was a struggle for the Black Knights, who had already turned the ball over 11 times by that point.

But they began to come alive when Evan Plunkett assisted Brayden Fountain to cut it to 4-2 with 7:09 left in the half. Just shy of two minutes later, Hill Plunkett scored his 30th tally of the season to make it 4-3.

Following yet another Army turnover, Beard buried another. Then another turnover eventually led to Luke Walstrum’s goal after a Penn State timeout that put the Nittany Lions up 6-3 entering halftime.

Gunnar Fellows made it 6-4 93 seconds into the third quarter, but Penn State went back up by three and then held Army scoreless until there was 4:39 left in the game. Fountain scored, and then Tyler Mathews scored one of his own 26 seconds later to make it 10-6, but Army didn’t have enough time — or enough consistent offense — to come closer.

Hunter Aquino led Penn State with three goals and one assist. Both Beard and Michael Faraone scored twice. Preston Hawkins made 12 saves.