UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- In its first matchup against a ranked team this season, the Robert Morris University men's hockey team acquitted itself well, taking No. 12 Penn State down to the buzzer in a 2-1 defeat at Pegula Ice Arena. 

Sophomore center Grant Hebert scored in his return from injury and senior goalie Justin Kapelmaster kept up the good early-season work with 34 stops against a Nittany Lions team that scored 20 goals in its first four games.

RMU (3-4-0) might have dropped its fifth in a row to its Keystone State opponent, but it wasn't for lack of determination.

"Very proud of the effort," head coach Derek Schooley said. "We gave ourselves a great opportunity, but couldn't finish the job."

After Hebert's second goal in two career games at Penn State tied the score early in the second period, the Colonials had three power-play chances in the final 23 minutes, but couldn't cash in.

The second and third of those arrived midway through the third with RMU down 2-1, including a 90-second five-on-three advantage. Despite that opening, the visitors mustered just six shots on NIttany Lions goalie Peyton Jones in the third. Kapelmaster was on the bench for an extra attacker for most of the final 2 1/2 minutes, but in the end, the Colonials finished one shot away from forcing overtime.

"We need to execute better and we need to coach better," Schooley said, "but there are a lot of positives that we can carry over."

One of those positives was in the area of discipline. RMU entered the evening having faced 37 short-handed situations -- the most in NCAA Division I -- but Penn State (4-1-0) got just two power plays on home ice. 

Also, the Colonials' top two forward lines, centered by sophomores Aidan Spellacy and Hebert, combined to generate 25 shot attempts (14 on goal). Senior Pittsburgh native Luke Lynch didn't lack for effort in search of his first goal of the season, ripping a team-high six attempts and three on goal. Defenders Nolan Schaeffer (five blocked shots) and Sean Giles (two) were a plus tandem on the night.

Overall, it was a much tighter performance against a Penn State team that had scored 25 goals in its previous three games against RMU, including a pair of seven-goal outings at Pegula. On Friday, it took a perfect top-shelf one-timer from the Nits' Brandon Biro at 6:48 of the third to provide the final margin.

So for the first time since the 2015 Three Rivers Classic at the building then known as CONSOL Energy Center, an RMU-PSU game went down to the final buzzer. The Lions have won five in a row in the all-time series, but this close result tees up the coming rematch, on Saturday, Jan. 11 at Pittsburgh's PPG Paints Arena. 

For now, RMU will take a week off from game action before returning to Atlantic Hockey play with a home-and-home series against Canisius on Nov. 8-9.