It’s easy for college hockey to get lost in the sauce when we’re overloaded by pro football, college football, and baseball at this time of year, but I couldn’t stay away from watching Gavin McKenna make his Penn State debut last night against Arizona State. It helped that MLB was taking the night off after all of the Game 3 drama on Thursday. McKenna handed out beautiful assists on the first two Penn State goals, but the real star of the game was Matt DiMarsico, who scored a natural hat trick in the third period to help bring the Nittany Lions back from a 3-2 deficit. DiMarsico slammed in the equalizer just over a minute into the final period and then gave Penn State the lead seven minutes later when he capitalized on a lovely feed from Charlie Cerrato, who led everyone with five points on the night. DiMarsico finished the hat trick with an empty-net goal after Cerrato gave the Lions a two-goal lead by scoring off his own rebound with two minutes remaining.
This line, man!!#WeAre #HockeyValley pic.twitter.com/lScahM9Ke8
— Penn State Men’s Hockey (@PennStateMHKY) October 4, 2025
McKenna might be the reason why Penn State’s two-game set at Arizona State is being shown on NHL Network, but the depth of scorers on this team will be the reason it contends for a national championship. Penn State goes for the sweep in Tempe tonight at 8:00 PM, but this time in will be in the middle of a loaded sports slate since Dodgers vs. Phillies should be wrapping up Game 1 of their series during that time while Miami and Florida State will just be getting started in their ACC showdown.
Fortunately for someone like me who wants to watch the college hockey, there’s not an extreme amount of action going on in college football’s prime time space. NBC has Minnesota visiting a heavily favored Ohio State and ESPN has Texas Tech visiting a Houston team that barely survived a trip to Corvallis last week.
The two most intriguing college football games of the day are in the 3:30 PM time slot with Vanderbilt visiting Alabama and Texas visiting Florida. In the former, we get to see how Kalen DeBoer’s team responds to its shocking upset at the hands of the Commodores from last year. Vanderbilt is undefeated with a big win at South Carolina, and Diego Pavis could get some serious Heisman Trophy buzz if he leads his team to another big upset over Alabama. Meanwhile, DeBoer cooled his hot seat a little by defeating Georgia last week, but he could get run out of town if he drops this one at home.
The Texas game is all about Arch Manning. He was awful in the opener at Ohio State and has only played three cupcakes since then. This is another major test for him against a Florida team that has already lost three games, albeit against stiff competition. If Florida quarterback DJ Lagway doesn’t improve on his five-interception performance at LSU and his 61-yard dud at Miami, the Gators could be looking for a new head coach. There will also be plenty of pressure on Manning to show improvement on his first real test since the opener.
When you add in the baseball with Milwaukee and Toronto trying to prove themselves as surprise contenders against established brands as well as Seattle beginning its hunt for a first ever AL pennant, you get a sports day that is stuffed with intrigue and hopefully beers.
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