March 6, 2016
By Maria Canales, GoPSUsports.com Student Staff Writer
PHILADELPHIA ââ'¬" Despite a run of goals in the fourth quarter, the No. 20 Penn State men's lacrosse team (3-2) fell to Penn (2-1) at Franklin Field on Saturday.
Kicking off their spring break trip in Philadelphia, the Nittany Lions had focused the week of practice prior on improving certain aspects of their game based on their performance against Villanova. Specifically, head coach Jeff Tambroni said the team focused on improving their performance at the faceoff 'x.'
Penn State won 15 of the 22 face offs during Saturday's contest, with faceoff man, junior Billy Lombardi, going 14-for-19 at the 'x.'
"It was good to see us win more face offs, that was good," said Tambroni. "It's a sign of moving in a positive direction."
Another player who had a good performance, despite what the final score of the game said, was sophomore goaltender Will Schreiner. Schreiner made nine saves during Saturday's contest, several saves keeping the Quakers off the board and giving the Nittany Lions a chance at a comeback.
"I thought Will played really well today, especially coming off of last week's game," said Tambroni. "I don't think he played poorly against Villanova but we weren't really giving him a whole lot of help and mentally that can be devastating especially on a sophomore goalie coming in playing his first year, but I thought he did really well. If anything he allowed us to stay in this game and gave us a chance."
During the fourth quarter, the Nittany Lions seemed to find some energy and put five goals on the board. Three of the five goals came from senior attacker TJ Sanders.
However, the stellar performance from Sanders followed by two goals from freshman attacker Grant Ament and junior attacker Nick Aponte wasn't enough for the Nittany Lions to overtake the early deficit created by the Quakers.
"I thought Penn, every time we tried to fix something they came right back," said Tambroni. "Momentum and possession time seems to not have favored us all that well but that's on us, not on a particular unit."
The Penn State faithful came out to support the Nittany Lions on Saturday, and had a large presence in the crowd, which cheered on the Lions at every goal in the fourth quarter. Despite the overwhelming crowd support, the Nittany Lions fell to the Quakers 11-7.
Next up for the Nittany Lions they continue their spring break trip as they head to South Carolina to take on Furman (0-4) on Tuesday.
After an off day for the team on Sunday, Tambroni will get the team rolling with practice on Monday in preparations for their showdown with the Paladins, focusing on some of the errors the team made against Penn.
"Hopefully these guys will all get some sleep," said Tambroni. "It seemed like we practiced tired this week and I'm not sure if that had anything to do with today. You've got to move on quickly and if we can pick one or two areas, clearing being absolutely one of them, offensively I think we have to shoot the ball better, so maybe those two areas. We'll do a little bit better job at cleaning up that on Monday."
Penn State plays at Furman on Tuesday at noon.