UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – After a convincing weekend down in Charlotte, N.C., the Penn State men's lacrosse team came home with two wins and on Monday were awarded the No. 1 ranking in both the United State Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association Coaches Poll and the Inside Lacrosse media poll and were No. 2 in the US Lacrosse Magazine poll.
Penn State took down former-No. 3 Cornell, 19-13, on Friday night, and then followed it up with a 24-11 win over Jacksonville on Sunday to be the lone team to go 2-0 at the Crown Lacrosse Classic in Charlotte.
Over the weekend Penn State saw junior faceoff man Gerard Arceri surpass the school's career faceoff wins record. On his 14th faceoff win of the game against Jacksonville on Sunday, Arceri become the Penn State record holder for career faceoff wins with 511, he now sits at 512 for his career. Starting the day at third on the all-time list, Arceri passed both second-place Greg Gurenlian (508; 2003-06) and first-place Danny Henneghan (510; 2010-13), to take sole possession of the top.
The Nittany Lions also saw redshirt junior Grant Ament take hold of the PSU single season assists record. On his seventh assist of the afternoon on Sunday, Ament broke the Penn State single season assist record of 44 set by both Gary Martin (1982) and Jeff Connor (1988). Ament is now at 110 career assists, good for second all-time, trailing only Martin who recorded 156 from 1981-84.
As a team, the Nittany Lions currently ran No. 1 in the nation in four categories and No. 2 in three. They are the top team in man-up offense (0.652), points per game (30.71), scoring margin (8.43), and scoring offense (18.86). They are second in assists per game (11.86), shot percentage (.436), and winning percentage (.857).
Ament currently leads the nation in assists per game at 6.57 as well as points per game at 8.00. Junior Mac O'Keefe holds the top spot in goals per game at 4.43 and is second in individual man-up goals at 5. Freshman TJ Malone is fifth in both shot percentage (.607) and man up goals (4).
Penn State gets a week off before heading to Cleveland State on Saturday, March 23 for a 12:30 p.m. ET first face in Cleveland, Ohio.
