ERIE, PA – The Mercyhurst women's hockey team will begin their postseason play this Friday at the CHA Postseason Tournament inside of Syracuse Universities Tennity Ice Pavilion. The Lakers (20-11-2, 10-6 CHA) will match up with the Penn State Nittany Lions (18-9-5, 8-3-3 CHA) in the semifinal round on Friday at 4:00 p.m. The winner will advance to Play to winner of Syracuse vs. Lindenwood/RIT in the Championship game at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday.

Laker Overview 

Mercyhurst finished the season with 20 wins making it the 15th time in head coach Mike Sisti's career that he guided the Lakers past that mark. The green and white enter the postseason tournament having defeated every conference member at least once in the regular season, including a 2-2 mark against CHA Regular Season Champion Syracuse. The team closed out their regular season schedule going 4-2, all against CHA opponents.

The Lakers will be led into the postseason by its two leading point scores in Vanessa Upson (19G,18A) and Sara Boucher (19G,17A). The two combined for 12 goals and 8 assists in the teams final six games of the season.

In net, the Lakers tandem of Ena Nystrøm and Jenna Silvonen has worked well for head coach Mike Sisti. Nystrøm was tied for tops in the conference with a .939 save percentage to go along with a 1.81 GAA, while Silvonen posted three shutouts with a 2.05 GAA in her 16 starts.

Scouting the Nittany Lions

Penn State enters the conference tournament as the No. 2 seed finishing the regular season with an 8-3-3 mark in CHA competition. They are led by the CHA's top two points scores in Natalie Heising (20G,20A) and Kiara Zanon (13G,26A). Both girls joined Upson on the conference's first team while Heising was named the CHA Player of the Year. 

Josie Bothun has started every game  in goal this season for the Nittany Lions. She is an HCA Goaltender of the Year semifinalist, and led the conference with a 1.61 goals against average through 32 games.

Honor Roll

Five Mercyhurst skaters collected All-Conference honors this past week while two earned conference individual awards. 

Vanessa Upson was picked to the CHA First Team as well as the conference's All-Rookie Team. Additionally, Upson picked up the CHA Rookie of the Year title while also being the leading scorer in CHA play. K.K. Thiessen was a member of the CHA Second Team on top of being named as a recipient of the conference's Individual Sportsmanship Award. Joining Thiessen on the second team was forward Sara Boucher and goaltender Ena Nystøm. Freshman Sydney Pedersen was additionally chosen to the All-Rookie team with Upson.

Notables
 

• Mercyhurst finished with more than 20 wins for the second time in five seasons. They were the only CHA team to finish with 20 or more wins this season despite finishing third in the conference.

 

• The Last time the Lakers played Penn State in the CHA tournament was during the 2019-20 season. Mercyhurst got the best of the Nittany Lions in that one as they ultimately went on to defeat Robert Morris in the championship game.

 

•  Vanessa Upson's five point game back on October eighth against Franklin Pierce was the most scored by a CHA player in a game this season.

 

• The Lakers led the CHA in scoring this season as they put up 3.06 goals per game. They were also the only team in the conference to score more than 100 goals as they finished the season with 101.
  
  
   

Whats Next?

With a win on Friday, the Lakers will advance to the CHA Championship game at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday. A wn in the conference championship game would give the Lakers the CHA's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Coach Sisti's Thoughts

Hear from head man Mike Sisti and his thoughts about the upcoming weekend.