March 31, 2008
Coach Morett's First Offseason Podcast (mp3)
Live Webcast of Sony Challenge
University Park, Pa. - A trip out to California to play in the prestigious Sony Challenge highlights the Penn State field hockey team's spring exhibition schedule, which will see the Nittany Lions take the field in each of the next four weekends as the defending national runners-up prepare for the 2008 season.
The Sony Challenge is in its second year of existence and bills itself as the "premiere women's (field hockey) invitational event in the United States." Hosted by Stanford on its campus in Palo Alto, Calif. at Stanford Field, the event will feature a series of exhibition games over two days, this coming Saturday and Sunday, April 5-6. In addition to Penn State, the tournament features fellow 2007 NCAA Final Four participant Wake Forest, who the Nittany Lions defeated 2-0 in the national semifinals back in November, host Stanford, Pacific, California and the Sony Ichinomiya Bravia Ladies, a team of Japanese All-Stars.
The tournament will feature pool play with each team playing one game against each other, followed a championship round of games that will match up the top four teams in a "final four" type of playoff. Penn State' schedule for this weekend is listed below. For more information on this event, visit www.sonychallenge.com.
Following the Sony Challenge event this weekend, Penn State will also play exhibitions the following three weekends. On Saturday, April 12, the Nittany Lions will play at the Princeton Tournament, which will also feature teams from around the east coast and round robin play. The following Saturday, April 19th, which is also Blue-White Weekend, the current group of Nittany Lions will scrimmage against the Penn State field hockey alumni at 11:00 a.m. on AstroTurf Field. The spring season will then wrap up the following Saturday, April 26 when the Nittany Lions will host their own tournament featuring several teams from Pennsylvania beginning at 9:00 a.m. on AstroTurf Field.