On the night of Thursday, Jan. 30, State College Hockey honored three seniors in a 3-3 tie with Somerset. The tie was due to them going past their rink curfew. The three seniors honored were goaltender Cecilia Keys (#15), defenseman Sean Murphy (#56) and forward Cooper Brumberg (#43).

It was one-sided most of the game with State College constantly coming up with big takeaways and faceoff wins. This trend was consistent throughout the game and overtime with State skating all over the offensive zone while keeping their side mostly pristine. 

State College went up 1-0 to start the game with an even-strength goal by Rylen Coffee. To start the second period, State went up 2-0 with the goal being scored by Ryan Marusa, then Somerset answered less than 15 seconds later with a goal by Dominick McKelvey.

That wouldn’t be the end of the goal-scoring for the second period. State College would answer just 44 seconds later with an even-strength goal by Shane Bader and then the avalanche of goals would finally end with a short-handed goal for Somerset by Trenton Smith. The third period was quite uneventful with only one goal, an even-strength score by Somerset’s Trenton Smith

Cecilia Keys is the newest member on the team, having just moved here last year and has largely enjoyed State High.

“Honestly, it’s been such a great environment. Everyone’s been super supportive and there’s been a ton of growth that I’ve seen from both the team and myself as well and overall it’s been a really good experience,” Keys said. 

Keys has plans to continue playing hockey but isn’t sure where yet.“I haven’t committed anywhere yet but I would like to go to the PWHL when I’m older, but I think my main interest right now is to help with the development of people in the area and get those programs started,” Keys said.

Murphy has been with the team for all four years of high school and has some great memories.

“My favorite moment on the team was winning the league championship in my sophomore year. It was a great moment, a great experience, just being with that group of guys was awesome. I loved every second of it,” Murphy said. “My favorite goal for State College was my sophomore year against Hollidaysburg. I was just back door and I just shot it and put it right in and I just went to celebrate with the student section.”

Murphy plans to go to Penn State for supply chain management and plans to stay in the area to coach hockey on the side while having a main job he focuses on. He also plans to continue to play hockey, but on a more casual level.

Head Coach David Lee described the team, specifically the group of seniors and who their potential replacements are as the voice of leadership.

“I mean, they’re a really skilled team, but as you said we’re also a young team, so it’s a lot of fun. They come to the rink really excited to hit the ice and get to work. The three seniors show so much leadership, they play well, and they lead the team well. Couldn’t ask for a better group,” Lee said. “So, after the season there’s about a six-month time period and a lot of growing happens over those six months, so we’ll see what happens. We have a really solid group of ninth and 10th graders and we’ll kind of see what they got.”

Freshman forward Ryan Marusa described this year’s seniors and the team’s future leaders.“I think Derek Peltzer, he is a junior this year and he has a really big impact on the team,” Marusa said.“The seniors are great, they impact this team so much, they bring a great attitude to this team and overall they’re just great to have.”

The Little Lions will close their regular season with two upcoming road games.