UNIVERSITY PARK, Penn. — The Wisconsin men's hockey team put together two separate third period comebacks, but the end result proved fruitless in a 4-3 overtime loss to Penn State on Friday night at Pegula Ice Arena.
 
Entering the third period, the Badgers (4-9-6, 1-4-2-1 Big Ten) trailed the Nittany Lions (14-4-3, 4-1-0-0 Big Ten) 2-1 after surrendering two second-period goals. But Luke Kunin scored early in the third to help the Badgers tie the score the first time, and Jake Linhart scored his second goal of the game with less than four minutes left in regulation to help UW erase the second deficit and force overtime.
 
Only 44 seconds into the overtime session though, Penn State's David Goodwin beat UW goaltender Matt Jurusik to spoil the Badgers' hard-fought efforts.
 
"As bad as we were in the second, we had a great response in the third and battled," UW head coach Mike Eaves said. "I love the fight in this team. But when you play hard, you also have to play smart, and we hurt ourselves a couple of times in the third and in overtime."
 
Jurusik was the story of the game for Wisconsin. Despite giving up four goals, he recorded 54 saves on 58 shots, becoming the first UW goaltender since Bernd Bruckler on Feb. 8, 2002 to record 50 or more saves in a game.
 
The toughest challenge of the night for Jurusik came in the second period. Penn State outshot UW by 21 in the middle stanza, and Jurusik managed to stop 22 of the 24 shots he faced in the period to keep the Badgers in the game.
 
"He's a very fine young goaltender," Eaves said of Jurusik. "I think a lot of times when you face shots, it's easier to stay in games. He did a nice job for us, gave us a chance to hang around and do something special."
 
Wisconsin built off of Jurusik's strong start, which saw the freshman goaltender stop 38 of the first 40 shots he saw, and translated that into a comeback in the third period.
 
Having survived the second period frenzy from PSU, Wisconsin drew even just 5:11 into the third frame on Kunin's team-leading eighth goal of the year. Kunin took a pass from Cameron Hughes and beat the Nittany Lion's Matthew Skoff on a one-timer from the low slot to make it 2-2.
 
Although Penn State took the lead back with just 6:47 left in the game, UW had another response left in it. It was Linhart who answered for Wisconsin this time, scoring his second goal of the game on a shot that deflected off of Skoff's glove exactly three minutes after Penn State had taken the lead.
 
Linhart's first goal of the game gave Wisconsin its only lead at the 12:23 mark of the first period, as he netted his third power-play goal of the season. Linhart did not have a single goal last year and now has six tallies this season.
 
Even in the loss, Wisconsin managed to take a game to overtime in which it got outshot 58-25, an important learning opportunity according to Eaves.
 
"We try to do that in practice, but nothing beats doing it in a game and getting real lessons. We'll be better because of it," Eaves said of the second period and eventual comeback. "We survived it and came back and tied the game. It just hurts right now because we ended up on the short end of the stick."
 
The loss marked the first overtime defeat for UW since March 14, 2014. The Badgers were undefeated in their previous 12 overtime games (1-0-11).
 
UW will go for the series split with PSU on Saturday. Puck drop is scheduled for 5 p.m. and the game airs on ESPNU.