UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Following a hard fought 1-0 loss to Wake Forest on Sunday, No. 11 Penn State will now host two Atlantic Coast Conference opponents as Syracuse and No. 6 Virginia will make the trip to Happy Valley this week.
The Cavaliers will be the third ranked team Penn State has played in what has been a very difficult nonconference schedule for the Nittany Lions. Head coach Erica Dambach talked about the importance of challenging her team prior to Big Ten play.
"I think you have to go through some hardship in order to be stronger, and you can't find that if you're winning games (easily) and beating opponents 3-0," she said. "You may get a good feeling (from those wins), but it's a false feeling."
For Dambach and the rest of Penn State's program, having a tough schedule early in the year is not seen as a hinderance, but instead a great opportunity for the team to get better as a unit.
"It's just finding out about yourself," Dambach said about going up against top competition. "We learned way more about ourselves then we would otherwise. We want to go into Big Ten play having been exposed, picked apart, and tested both mentally and physically."
Dambach, in her 12th year leading the Nittany Lion program, is pleased with how her student-athletes have responded to the difficult opposition thus far.
"Right now they're having to bend and not break, and there's a lot of good discussions coming out of it," she said.
As for Penn State's matchup with Syracuse, it will be a true test of their physicality and tough-minded play.
"A lot of these teams (in the ACC) are all so big, strong, and physical, and that's a big part of their game," sophomore forward Kerry Abello said. "I think that it is really good preparation going into our Big Ten season, especially because every Big Ten team is hard to play physically."
"It's another good ACC team that we're going to play," junior goalkeeper Amanda Dennis added of Syracuse. "They're just an all-around good soccer team, and that's the ACC style. We're a little bit more blue-collared in the Big Ten, but either way we'll be up against some good soccer players."
One focus for the Blue and White moving forward is improving their finishing. In the team's last game, Penn State had twice as many shots as Wake Forest, but couldn't come away with a goal. Despite the luckless finishing, there is no panic in these Nittany Lions. Abello talked about how the team deals with sometimes not being to find the back of the net despite good play.
"For us, our main priority right now is creating chances, and we did that against Wake Forest. Obviously, we didn't get the result we wanted to, so it just comes down to finishing," Abello said. "It's a day-by-day thing, but I think mainly right now we're creating those dangerous chances against good teams, and that's what is important."
Coach Dambach had a similar message when asked about the team's finishing.
"There's times where we you're shooting and taking naive shots and there's times where you're getting in good spaces and taking (shots) well," Dambach added. "In this particular case (against Wake Forest) the keeper was doing well. I was happy with our shot selection. I was happy with the spaces that we were getting into. You keep pushing and it will solve itself."
The goals are coming, and the team knows it. Penn State will take on Syracuse Thursday at 7 p.m. at Jeffery Field.
