When he arrived on campus in 2017, Jeff Kampersal said he never could have imagined the season he and his team had in 2025-26. But in so many ways the season was the culmination of the work that started with the program nine years ago. It has been nothing short of a massive transformation.
One of the first things Kampersal did was revamp the team’s non-conference schedule. With a focus and understanding of the (then-RPI, now) NPI and the difficulty (then-CHA, now) AHA teams faced in breaking through to the top-10, Kampersal added increasingly tougher opponents to the Nittany Lions schedule. Those games tested his teams, but ultimately helped them become more competitive nationally and helped them climb in the polls and ratings. With a program that had fractured a bit in the years before he arrived, Kampersale created a new culture and new expectations. Within four years his team won a conference regular season title.
Yes, this is an award for the best coach this season, but it’s impossible to look at the year Kampersal and the Penn State women’s hockey team had and not understand and appreciate the work, planning and execution that went into arriving at this point.
All of the above laid the groundwork to recruit the players he has now and grow the program to one that reached their fourth-straight NCAA Tournament and recorded their first-ever tournament win, defeating #6 Connecticut 3-0 in the NCAA Regionals to advance to the program’s first-ever Frozen Four.
The list of accolades and records Kampersal coached his team to this season is long.
Penn State finished the season 33-5, setting a program record for victories in a season. They were 22-2 in conference, winning their fourth-straight regular season AHA title (fifth overall) before taking their fourth-straight AHA Tournament Championship. They outscored opponents 165-54 on the season and had the country’s top Team Defense, allowing just 1.38 goals per game while placing fourth in the nation with 4.23 goals scored per game. The team set seven new program records this season, including the 165 goals, 252 assists, 417 points, 1505 shots, 16 shutouts, 26 power play goals and the 1.38 goals against average.
The Nittany Lions hosted a regional in the NC Women’s Ice Hockey Championship for the first time in program history. The No. 3 ranking is the highest in program history. The 5,176 fans that packed Pegula Arena for the national semifinal game against Wisconsin was a Women’s Frozen Four record as well as a new program attendance record, smashing the one they’d set earlier in the season.
Under Kampersal’s direction, the program had their first-ever Patty Kazmaier Award top-three finalist in Janecke this season. She was also the first in program history to be named a First Team All-American.
Kampersal was named CCM/AHCA Women’s University Division Coach of the Year for the first time in his career and the first time in Penn State’s program history.
This season, the program set an AHA record with seven postseason awards won: AHA Player of the Year and Forward of the Year (Tessa Janecke), Defender of the Year (Kendall Butze), Goalie of the Year and Goaltending Champion (Katie DeSa), Rookie of the Year (Danica Maynard) and scoring champion (Grace Outwater), plus Kampersal was named AHA Coach of the Year for the fourth-straight time this season. The team tied program records with nine All-AHA selections and four All-AHA First team honorees.
It has been an uphill battle for recognition and Kampersal has put in the work to force the Penn State campus and the women’s college world to pay attention to his team. With little roster turnover in the age of the transfer portal, Kampersal built PSU into a program that top players from both North America and Europe are excited to join. This year may have looked like the high point of nine years of work, but by no means does it appear that Kampersal or Penn State have peaked. They reached their next goal, but with a strong reputation and stronger leadership in Kampersal and his staff of Makenna Newkirk, Moe Bradley and Jennifer Wakefield, there’s no reason to believe this is the end of anything in Hockey Valley. We can’t wait to see what our 2026 USCHO Coach of the Year Jeff Kampersal does next.