Janecke even better in 2nd year at Penn State
This year was always going to be tougher for Tessa Janecke, who led Penn State to the women’s hockey NCAA regional finals for the first time as a freshman last year.
“We lost five seniors and fifth-year players and two other players transferred,” said Janecke, who led Orangeville to a third-place finish in the state softball tournament as a high school junior. “We only gained two freshmen. Our team was small. Trying to fill in those gaps and come together as a team took a little longer, but at the end we accomplished the same things.”
One of those players who graduated was Penn State’s all-time leading scorer, Kiara Zanon. A title Janecke will certainly one day have. But the greatest hockey player to ever come out of the Rockfordarea quickly learned what it was like to not have another star to share the ice with in NCAA-level hockey. The likely future Olympian — she is currently at another U.S. Women’s National Team Evaluation Camp, where she qualified last year for the gold medal-winning World Championship team — ran into a new level of physical defense this season.
“In the beginning this year, teams would get under her skin a little bit,” Penn State coach Jeff Kampersal said. “She figured out by mid-year to keep that in check and stay on the ice and still be physical and tough without letting the other teams see her rattled.”
Teams tried everything to get her rattled. And to keep her from scoring. Even if it cost them a penalty. Sort of how NBA teams once tried to keep Shaquille O’Neal from dunking on them.
“Whether it was cross checking her behind the play, slashing her in the back of the legs or giving her a little stick here and there,” Kampersal said. “I referred to it as hack-a-Tessa, like Shaq back in those days. When you are getting physically beat on every game, it’s hard to maintain sanity. I don’t blame her for getting frustrated. But toward the middle-end of the year, she handled it differently and was successful all year. She had to make certain adjustments and stay in different parts of the zone where she’s not going to get as covered or bothered and then make her way into the play. Little things. She self-adjusted.”
Janecke led Penn State (22-13-3) to its second consecutive College Hockey America title, the only two times the Nittany Lions have ever taken the conference title. They also lost in the NCAA regional semifinals for the second consecutive year, both times in overtime, this time 1-0 to No. 7 St. Lawrence.
Janecke was the national rookie of the year as a freshman. This year she was even better.
She was one of 10 players nominated for the Patty Kazmaier Award, given to the nation’s top player, and was named second-team All-American. She finished with 53 points, leading the team in both goals (17) and assists. Her 36 assists were double that of any teammate and nine more than any other Nittany Lion in history.
“It’s something that should humble you and make you grateful for the people you have around you in your life, who helped you along the way,” Janecke said of being nominated for player of the year, even though she did not make the cut to the final three.
“It’s about who you are as a person and a player,” added Janecke, who also was named to the AHCA Academic AllAmerican team as a freshman. “It should be how well-rounded you are at this point in your life, in school, on the ice and as a person and teammate, too. All those categories count.”
Janecke has been active with charity work at Penn State. Among other things, she packed meals for needy children during a Martin Luther King
Day event on campus, helped during a prom night for special needs children and performed a dance with the rest of the women’s hockey team during a marathon dance event to raise money to battle children’s cancer.
“When we did that dance, I was definitely not great,” Janecke said, “but I wasn’t the worst on our team.”
On the ice, Janecke was the best on her team all year. Off the ice, too. Kampersal said she has set every team standard in the weight room.
With 100 career points in two years, Janecke is already fifth all-time at Penn State and should easily break the school record of 137 as a junior next year.
“She came in as a dominant player and she has remained a dominant player,” Kampersal said. “Putting up 100 points in two seasons is a spectacular feat. She gets recognized for all of those things, but it’s the little things that she does. At the end of the Mercyhurst game (a 1-0 win in the conference championship game) with three minutes to go, she blocked a shot on the backdoor that Mercyhurst would have scored on. She sets the standard for face-off wins (630 this year) in college hockey. She dominates there. She dominates on the back pressure. Getting back. Back-checking. Short-handed goals. She does all the big things, but she does all the little things as well. That’s what I want her to continue to do.”
He also wants her to keep making U.S. national teams. The roster for this year will be announced Sunday after the Evaluation Camp ends.
“Every time she comes back from those, she’s another level stronger, another level faster,” Kampersal said.
That is always Tessa Janecke’s goal. To be great. Then get even greater.
And find a way to do the same for her team.
“I want to find new ways to score and make my game better while also making the players around me better, becoming a whole team,” Janecke said. “It’s more of a mental development that can help me out there. I want to see the ice better. I tried to be more creative this year. I want to be even more creative next year.”
Contact: mtrowbridge@rrstar.com, @matttrowbridge or 815-987-1383. Matt Trowbridge has covered sports for the Rockford Register Star for over 30 years, after previous stints in North Dakota, Delaware, Vermont and Iowa City.