STATE COLLEGE, PA –  A solid team effort lifted the RIT women's hockey team (13-12-4, 8-4-2 CHA) to 3-1 win over College Hockey America rival Penn State (4-21-3, 1-12-0 CHA) on Saturday afternoon. Six different Tigers earned a point in the win, as the Tigers moved back over .500 on the season for the first time in nearly two months.

The Tigers are now riding a four-game unbeaten streak and have a four-point lead on Syracuse for third place in the CHA standings.

RIT goaltender Brooke Stoddart (Elmvale, Ontario/Elmvale) made the second start of her career in net and allowed just one goal on 18 shots faced for her first collegiate win. Her effort was tremendous in the Tiger win, as she made a handful of fantastic saves at crucial points of the game.

Celeste Brown (Great Falls, MT/National Sports Academy) would net the Tigers first goal, on a power play, off a great pass from Dakota Waites (Whitby, Ontario/Sinclair) directly off the faceoff in the offensive zone to tie the game at 1-1 midway through the second.

Mackenzie Stone (Kars, Ontario/South Carleton) gave RIT the lead for good with 3:03 in the second, scoring an unassisted goal off a steal in the neutral zone. That goal was the fifth of the season for Stone, all of which are game winning goals. Stone used some nifty stick handling off a steal to elude the defense, skated to the right side of the net with it and poked it right inside the right post

Midway through the third, Kolbee McCrea (Wawa, Ontario/Burlington Barracudas) would add her team leading 14th goal of the season to put the finishing touches on the game. Linemates Erin Zach (Elmira, Ontario/Cambridge Fury) and Marissa Maugeri (Ajax, Ontario/Durham West Lightning) assisted on the final Tiger goal. McCrea and Maugeri now each have a team-best 22 points this season.
 
Laura Bowman scored the lone Penn State goal with under a minute remaining in the first, which at the time gave them a 1-0 lead. Nittany Lions goaltender Nicole Paniccia was faced with 47 total shots, saving 44 of them in the loss.
 
The Tigers were solid in all facets of the game, holding Penn State to just 18 shots, while firing 47 themselves. RIT was 1-for-4 with the man-advantage and killed off all three Penn State power-plays.

"We competed a lot harder today, but we skated a lot harder as well, and that was really the big difference," said head coach Scott McDonald. "We won a lot of loose puck battles, the penalty kill was really strong for us all weekend and obviously Brooke (Stoddart) stood big when she was called."
 
The game started out as a defensive struggle, as there were just five shots between the two teams through the first eight minutes of play. With just under 11 minutes remaining in the period the RIT offense found its rhythm. The Tigers nearly got on the board first with a great backhanded deflection by McCrea out in front but Paniccia batted it down and covered it.
 
Stone nearly broke the scoreless tie again for RIT at the 5:20 mark with two great consecutive shots off a pass from Scoyne at the point, but Paniccia made the saves with her pad to keeps the game scoreless.
 
Despite RIT playing tough defense through most of the period Penn State found a way to get on the board first, after a shot by Bowman from the right circle trickled just past Stoddart and into the net.
 
The Tigers didn't falter though out of the first break and Stoddart was especially terrific making a series of saves for RIT to keep the deficit at one and help kill off penalty.

With 3:13 to go in the second Stone would score to give the Tigers the lead and they never looked back. In the third RIT would keep their foot on the gas and continue to attack offensively. With 10:02 remaining in the game McCrea would give the Tigers some breathing room with another goal to balloon their lead to 3-1.
 
From there it was all about the Tigers defense, which shut the door on any chance of a Nittany Lions comeback and preserved the 3-1 score to finish off the game.
 
RIT is now 8-0-2 all-time against Penn State, including a 3-0-1 edge this season.
 
With the regular season winding down, RIT will head to Mercyhurst for a two game set next weekend on Feb. 7 and 8. The two games are key for the CHA foes who are separated by just three points in the standings and conference tournament seeding could be on the line. Friday's game gets underway at 7 p.m., while Saturday's is slatted for a 2 p.m. start.