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Courtney Sowinski and Chase Dragoon wedding

<p>Over three consecutive nights last weekend, Penn State played 240 minutes and 16 seconds of hockey. The equivalent of four full games.</p><p>Peyton Jones was on the ice for all of it.</p><p>The Nittany Lions&#8217; goalie &#8212; a freshman who grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs &#8212; was in net to make 118 saves against Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin to lead Penn State to its first Big Ten championship. The last two victories during that exhausting stretch came in double overtime.</p><p>&#8220;Guys were tired,&#8221; Jones said in the post-tournament press conference. &#8220;As much as we&#8217;re going to say we weren&#8217;t tired, we were tired. It&#8217;s a tough game. Playoff hockey makes it even harder on your body. Going into double overtime, we were positive, and it was good for us to get the win there.&#8221;</p><p>Jones is one of six Pennsylvania natives on a roster that will make its first NCAA Tournament appearance on Saturday, taking on Union College at 4:30 p.m. in Cincinnati.</p><p>Four hail from the eastern half of the state &#8212; Jones (Langhorne), Ricky DeRosa (Aston), David Thompson (Glen Mills) and Kevin Kerr (Bensalem). Matt Mendelson (Pittsburgh) and Matt Erlichman (Bedford) came from the western side.</p><p>Jones, DeRosa and Thompson all figured prominently during the Big Ten Tournament.</p><p>Jones was named MVP for his performance, finishing with a 1.24 goals against average and a .959 save percentage at Detroit&#8217;s venerable Joe Louis Arena.</p><p>&#8220;All I can say is he&#8217;s a winner,&#8221; Lions coach Guy Gadowsky said at the same press conference. &#8220;I mean, it&#8217;s phenomenal to see, phenomenal to watch. Just sat back and enjoyed it. It was a spectacular performance. Not just to night but this whole tournament.</p><p>&#8220;He was absolutely spectacular. Can&#8217;t say enough.&#8221;</p><p>DeRosa, a winger, picked up two assists during the weekend, with one coming on the eventual game-winner in the quarterfinals against Michigan.</p><p>A senior, DeRosa is a vocal presence as one of the Lions&#8217; alternate captains.</p><p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t care if it takes five minutes or four periods &#8212; we&#8217;re gonna win the hockey game,&#8221; DeRosa said in a Penn State locker room video before the start overtime against Wisconsin.</p><p>It didn&#8217;t quite take four extra periods to bring home a trophy.</p><p>Thompson, a defenseman, started the play that finally ended it all in the second overtime against the Badgers. He earned a secondary assist on the tournament-winner, feeding Brandon Biro, who then sprung a wide-open Liam Folkes on a breakaway that started the celebration.</p><p>Kerr had been a mainstay on Penn State&#8217;s blue line before suffering a season-ending injury in February. Mendelson, a forward, and Erlichman, a goalie, have served as reserves this season.</p><p>The local players have mixed in with an international flavor on the roster that includes the country&#8217;s highest-scoring freshman in Denis Smirnov, who was born in Moscow &#8212; Russia, not Lackawanna County.</p><p>In the semifinals against top-seeded Minnesota, Smirnov set up defenseman Erik Autio, a native of Espoo, Finland, for the game-winner in the other double-overtime affair. The Lions also have another Russian, Nikita Pavlychev, in the lineup.</p><p>A Pittsburgh Penguins draft pick, Pavlychev could find himself skating for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton at some point down the road.</p><p>For now, the Lions&#8217; focus is on Union. A small school in Schenectady, New York, the Dutchmen have a much bigger stature on the ice, having won the 2014 national title.</p><p>Union is seeded second in the four-team Midwest Regional, with Penn State third. The winner will take on either Denver &#8212; the tournament&#8217;s top overall seed &#8212; or Michigan Tech at 6 p.m. Sunday, with a spot in next weekend&#8217;s Frozen Four on the line.</p><p>Just reaching the tournament is a major milestone for a Penn State program that&#8217;s in just its fifth season at the NCAA Division I level.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s great. It&#8217;s very special,&#8221; Gadowsky said. &#8220;I know how hard it is to get there and how you have to be really good and you have to be really fortunate. We&#8217;re going to enjoy every minute of it because it&#8217;s really hard to do.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Breakout freshman goalie Peyton Jones is one of six Pennsylvania natives who helped Penn State earn its first NCAA Tournament berth this season. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/web1_psu-jones201732417341982.jpg</photo0><caption0>Breakout freshman goalie Peyton Jones is one of six Pennsylvania natives who helped Penn State earn its first NCAA Tournament berth this season. </caption0><photoCredit0>Carlos Osorio | AP photo </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Derek Levarse</p><p>dlevarse@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>UP NEXT</strong></p><p style="text-align: center;">NCAA Hockey Tournament</p><p style="text-align: center;">Penn State (24-11-2)</p><p style="text-align: center;">vs. Union (25-9-3)</p><p>4:30 p.m, Saturday</p><p>U.S. Bank Arena</p><p>Cincinnati, Ohio</p><p>Watch online at ESPN.com</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Derek Levarse at 570-991-6396 or on Twitter @TLdlevarse</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Pennsylvania natives help lift Penn State hockey into NCAA Tournament