Aug. 22, 2007
Old Dominion/Virginia Game Notes
University Park, Pa. - The Penn State field hockey team will open up its 2007 season this weekend by diving right in to what should prove to once again be a tough schedule, as has been tradition under 21st-year head coach Charlene Morett. The Nittany Lions, who are ranked seventh in the preseason STX/NFHCA top 20 poll, will play the team above them and the team below them in the poll in No. 6 Old Dominion and No. 8 Virginia.
The Lions will open against Old Dominion for the fifth consecutive year as they will take on the Monarchs at 1:00 p.m. at Foreman Field in Norfolk, Va. The Monarchs, who are the only team in the country that has more NCAA Tournament appearances than Penn State, will be the first of five straight NCAA Tournament teams from last year that the Nittany Lions will face to start the season. All together, Penn State will play eight teams this year that played in last year's NCAA Tournament. The game will once again be a matchup between two of the five winningest head coach in NCAA Division I field hockey history in Morett and ODU's Beth Anders, who is the winningest with 481 career wins. Morett is fifth with 363. Morett was an assistant at ODU under Anders from 1980-1984 before coaching at Boston College for three years and then taking over the Nittany Lion program in 1987. Old Dominion was knocked out in the first round of NCAA's last year. Penn State will be looking for its first win over the Monarchs since 2003.
Virginia will be the the opponent on Sunday at noon at University Turf Field in Charlottesville, Va. This will be the first meeting between the two programs since 2000, although the teams did scrimmage last year. Penn State won that last meeting in 2000, while Virginia's last win the series came in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in 1997 in Charlottesville. The Lions hold a 10-3 advantage in the all-time series. The Cavaliers played in last year's NCAA Tournament as well, advancing to the quarterfinals. While Sunday's game will be the second game of the year for Penn State, it will be the opener for the Cavaliers.
Penn State enters the season returning nine of 11 starters from last year's 16-6 team that advanced the championship game of the Big Ten Tournament and the quarterfinals (second round) of the NCAA Tournament. Included in that group are the top five scorers on last year's team, including Big Ten leading scorer Shaun Banta and two-time All-American Kiersten Wood, both seniors. Three of four starters return from the defense that led the Big Ten and was fifth in the country in goals against average.
After this weekend's games, the Lions will have a week off before returning to action with their home opener the following Sunday, September 2 against Connecticut at noon on AstroTurf Field.