Penn State men stay hot, top No. 1 Michigan State; UConn women claim second-straight Hockey East title - CHS 2-22-25

It’s the #CollegeHockey Scoreboard Show for February 22, 2025. I’m out of the rinks for the rest of the hockey season, but the show rolls on. We’ve got conference races that are just bonkers and a pair of tournaments firing up on the women’s side. No breakdowns. No Analysis. It’s JUST. THE. SCORES. 

We’ll begin on the men’s side where Penn State stayed hot. The No. 18 Nittany Lions built a 3-0 lead and held off top-ranked Michigan State 3-2, with Aiden Fink scoring his 23rd of the season, tying for the national lead in points with 45. The Nittany Lions took four of six points on the weekend. 

Andre Gasseau netted two goals as No. 2 Boston College extended its lead in Hockey East to five points over Maine with a 4-1 win over Vermont. Iiro Hakkarainen’s overtime winner gave No. 3 Western Michigan a 4-3 victory over No. 12 Arizona State, pushing the Broncos three points ahead of ASU in the NCHC. 

No. 5 Minnesota overtook first place in the Big Ten with a 6-3 win over No. 7 Ohio State at Mariucci, as Connor Kurth scored twice and the Gophers outshot the Buckeyes 40-19.  No. 6 Denver got goals from five different players in a 5-2 win over Miami to complete the weekend sweep. 

No. 8 Providence’s Nick Poisson recorded a hat trick in a 4-2 win over No. 13 UMass Lowell, keeping the Friars one point ahead of the River Hawks in Hockey East as UMass Lowell dropped five of its last seven.

No. 9 Boston University had three different players score and Mikhail Yegorov made 28 saves in a 3-1 win over Northeastern.  Dylan Silverstein and Noah Altman combined for a shutout as No. 14 Quinnipiac blanked Brown 4-0, keeping its ECAC lead at four points. 

No. 15 Minnesota State fell behind early but scored four unanswered to top Lake Superior State 4-1, with Josh Groll and Rhett Pitlick each netting their 13th goal of the year. No. 16 UMass got a goal from Cole O’Hara—his 18th of the year—to improve to 17-12-3 and move to 12th in the Pairwise rankings, though the Minutemen remain tied for seventh in Hockey East. No. 17 North Dakota dominated Minnesota-Duluth 6-1 behind two goals each from Sacha Boisvert and Cameron Berg, marking the Fighting Hawks’ eighth straight win over the Bulldogs. 

No. 19 Clarkson stormed out to a 5-1 lead before settling for a 5-3 win at Colgate, as Ayrton Martino netted his 21st of the season to stay fourth nationally in goals. St. Cloud State snapped an 11-game winless streak by jumping ahead 3-0 en route to a 4-2 win over No. 20 Colorado College, with Barrett Hall recording his first career multi-goal game. 

Air Force and Robert Morris tied 3-3 before Air Force won the shootout, Army West Point edged American International 3-2 in overtime, and Sacred Heart forced a first-place tie with Holy Cross in Atlantic Hockey after a 2-0 win over Bentley, which now sits two points back in third. Canisius dominated Niagara 6-2, RIT doubled up Mercyhurst 6-3. In the Big Ten, Notre Dame handled Wisconsin 6-1. 

In the CCHA, Bemidji State outlasted Bowling Green 2-1 in overtime, Ferris State edged Michigan Tech 3-2, and St. Thomas slipped past Northern Michigan 4-3. Harvard edged RPI 3-2, Cornell shut out St. Lawrence 6-0, Dartmouth nipped Union 2-1, and Princeton took the shootout after a 2-2 tie with Yale. 

In non-conference play, Alaska downed Augustana 5-3, and Bryant Marks stopped 22 shots for his first collegiate shutout as Alaska-Anchorage snapped an eight-game winless streak with a 1-0 win over Lindenwood to close its season on a high note. Stonehill outlasted LIU 2-1 in overtime.

On the women’s side, we’ll begin with tournament action:

In the ECAC Women’s First Round, No. 10 Quinnipiac scored twice in the first period and skated past Harvard 2-0, with Maya Labad netting her 14th goal of the season. Sixth-seeded Yale got goals from four different players to eliminate 11th-seeded Dartmouth 4-1, while ninth-seeded Union shut out Brown 2-0 to advance to the quarterfinals to face top-seeded Cornell. 

In the AHA Women’s Quarterfinals, Kailey Favro scored twice and Sara Coe made 25 saves as RIT blanked Lindenwood 4-0 to set up a semifinal series against top-seeded Penn State. Peyton Armstrong’s goal two minutes into the second overtime lifted third-seeded Syracuse past sixth-seeded Robert Morris 3-2, earning the Orange a semifinal matchup with Mercyhurst. 

It was the final weekend games for the rest of the country. In the WCHA, Kirsten Simms recorded a hat trick and Laila Edwards netted her 30th goal of the season as No. 1 Wisconsin wrapped up its regular season with a dominant 6-1 win over Bemidji State, finishing with a 31-1-2 record. No. 2 Ohio State edged No. 11 St. Cloud State 3-2 on a late goal from McKenna Webster, while Joy Dunne scored her 21st of the year for the Buckeyes. Fourth-ranked Minnesota took a 1-0 win over No. 6 Minnesota-Duluth on a goal from Abbey Murphy, her 25th of the season. 

UConn’s Ava Rinker picked the perfect time to score her second and third goals of the season, leading the Huskies to a 3-1 win over No. 12 Boston University to repeat as Hockey East champions, finishing one point ahead of BU. 

No. 14 Northeastern used a three-goal third period to top Vermont 3-1, with Lily Shannon and Skylar Irving both scoring their 14th of the year. No. 15 Boston College took the final point of the Hockey East regular season with a 1-1 tie against New Hampshire before winning the shootout to finish third in the standings. Holy Cross won the shootout after a 2-2 tie with Maine, while Providence shut out Merrimack 4-0. 

In the NEWHA, Stonehill edged Assumption 1-0, Franklin Pierce blanked St. Michael’s 4-0, and LIU took the shootout after a 2-2 tie with St. Anselm. Post wrapped up its season with a 1-0 win over Sacred Heart, and Minnesota State capped off the WCHA slate with a 3-0 shutout of St. Thomas. 

I’m Jason Bryant (@jasonmbryant). Leave a rating, review, or feedback at collegehockeyscoreboardpod.com. That’s the #CollegeHockey Scoreboard Show for February 22, 2025.