{"id":15060485,"date":"2026-03-28T04:12:56","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T08:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/penn-state-loses-to-umd-ending-mckennas-ncaa-season\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T15:01:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T19:01:22","slug":"penn-state-loses-to-umd-ending-mckennas-ncaa-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/penn-state-loses-to-umd-ending-mckennas-ncaa-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Penn State loses to UMD, ending McKenna&#039;s NCAA season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Minnesota-Duluth beat Penn State 3-1 in the Albany regional semifinal of the NCAA men&#8217;s hockey tournament Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The loss ends Gavin McKenna&#8217;s freshman campaign.<\/p>\n<p>McKenna, who is the potential first overall pick in June&#8217;s NHL draft, finished with 15 goals and 51 points in 35 games. He&#8217;s tied for third in NCAA scoring, and paced Penn State in points. McKenna is a top-10 finalist for the Hobey Baker as the top player in men&#8217;s collegiate hockey.<\/p>\n<div class=\"the-score-article-ad-unit\"><\/div>\n<p>The Whitehorse, Yukon native made the move from the WHL to Penn State last summer. The 2025-26 campaign was the first that allowed players who had played in the CHL to compete in the NCAA.<\/p>\n<p>UMD freshman Hunter Anderson netted the game-winning goal with 5:13 left after a McKenna pass was broken up.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"article-segment--embed\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/UMDMensHockey?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@UMDMensHockey<\/a> TAKES THE LEAD \u203c\ufe0f<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NCAAHockey?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#NCAAHockey<\/a> x \ud83c\udfa5 ESPN2 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/hb3ltAOMyX\">pic.twitter.com\/hb3ltAOMyX<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NCAA Ice Hockey (@NCAAIceHockey) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NCAAIceHockey\/status\/2037732811927351393?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 28, 2026<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Minnesota-Duluth advances to face Michigan, the No. 1 team in the nation, for a spot in the Frozen Four on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Penn State lost in the Frozen Four semis last year against Boston University. It was the first Frozen Four appearance in program history.<\/p>\n<p>McKenna had a felony assault charge <a data-in-app-uri=\"thescore:\/\/\/news\/3473539\" href=\"https:\/\/thescore.com\/news\/3473539\">dropped<\/a> in February, but he still faces other offenses. His formal arraignment is scheduled for April 8, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.psucollegian.com\/news\/crime_courts\/gavin-mckenna-waives-preliminary-hearing-ahead-of-big-ten-tournament\/article_849ae938-8476-4411-ad2f-88499c8ac984.html\">The Daily Collegian<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><small><em>Copyright &copy; 2026 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n<p class=\"inmi-source\">Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/thescore.com\/nhl\/news\/3509505\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Sports Hockey \u2013 The Score<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Minnesota-Duluth beat Penn State 3-1 in the Albany regional semifinal of the NCAA men&#8217;s hockey tournament Friday.The loss ends Gavin McKenna&#8217;s freshman campaign.McKenna, who is the potential first overall pick in June&#8217;s NHL draft, finished with 15 goals and 51\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[199],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15060485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","post-thumbnail":"","ignition_item":"","ignition_item_lg":"","ignition_article_media":"","ignition_minicart_item":"","profile_24":"","profile_48":"","profile_96":"","profile_150":"","profile_300":""},"author_info":{"display_name":"news.iNthacity","author_link":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/author\/atombo\/"},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/articles\/travel\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Travel<\/a>","tag_info":"Travel","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15060485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15060485"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15060485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15062347,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15060485\/revisions\/15062347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15060485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15060485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15060485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}