Oct. 25, 2007
University Park, Pa. - The No. 9 Penn State field hockey team will wrap up the regular season on Friday by hosting Ohio State at 6:00 p.m. on AstroTurf Field. The game will be televised live on the Big Ten Network, which will be the third live game on television for Penn State this year and it will also mark the first-ever game televised from AstroTurf Field, which is in its third year as the home to the Nittany Lion field hockey program.
In addition to the game being televised, the game will also be a Code Blue event. The first 200 students in attendance will receive a free Code Blue t-shirt. Free pizza coupons will also be given out at halftime and students will also have an opportunity to enter a grand drawing, which will be held on a future date, for free textbooks.
As far as the action on the field, Friday's matchup will determine the fourth and fifth seeds for the upcoming Big Ten Tournament. Penn State (11-6, 2-3 Big Ten) and Ohio State (6-10, 2-3 Big Ten) are already locked into the fourth and fifth seeds and will therefore play again next Thursday in Columbus in the first round of the tournament. Friday's winner will be the fourth seed and the loser will be the fifth seed. Michigan has already clinched the Big Ten regular season championship and the No. 1 seed and the Wolverines will face the winner of next Thursday's Penn State-Ohio State contest in the semifinals on Friday. As for the rest of the seeds, Iowa and Michigan State are locked in to the second and third seeds and those will be determined by this weekend's game between those teams. Meanwhile, Indiana and Northwestern are locked into the sixth and seventh seeds and those will also be determined by a game between the Hoosiers and Wildcats this weekend.
While Penn State is ranked ninth in the country for the fifth straight week, Ohio State is currently receiving votes in the STX/NFHCA Top 20 poll. Of Penn State's 18 opponents this year, with the Buckeyes being the 18th, 13 have been either against ranked teams (9) or teams receiving votes in the poll (4). The Nittany Lions are yet to lose a game to an unranked opponent this year as all six of Penn State's losses have come to top 10 teams.
Penn State is coming off a 6-1 win over Bucknell on Tuesday that saw the Nittany Lions score their season high in goals. Three of those goals were scored by Bethany Marvel, who recorded the first Penn State hat trick since Allison Scola on October 20 of last year vs. Northwestern. With her scoring output, Marvel more than doubled her career total for goals. Jen Long also scored her first career goal in Tuesday's win. Mallory Weisen also scored a goal, her seventh of the year, to tie her career high for goals in a season. Scola has also tied her career high for assists in a season with eight, tying her total from last year.
Penn State leads the series with Ohio State 27-7-2. Ohio State won last year's meeting in overtime in Columbus but prior to that, the Nittany Lions had won the last four meetings. Overall, Penn State has won four of the last five meetings, eight out of the last 11, and 12 out of the last 16. The series began back in 1977, a 5-1 win by Penn State, and the teams played every year from 1977-1988 except for the 1986 season. After a three-year layoff, the series began again in 1992 when Penn State joined the Big Ten and teams have played every year since.