Oct. 8, 2010
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The Penn State Nittany Lion men's lacrosse team will open up its 2011 season with three straight home games, plus two home scrimmages, as the Jeff Tambroni era begins in Happy Valley. Tambroni, who took the helm of the Nittany Lions this past summer, has put together a challenging schedule in his first year as head coach at Penn State.
"Our staff is extremely excited about the 2011 spring schedule. This will be our first opportunity, as a staff, to compete within the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) which has quickly become one of the nation's most competitive conferences," Tambroni said. "We are equally excited about our non-conference schedule and have a great deal of respect for our opponents outside the CAA. Overall the 2011 schedule will provide the necessary motivation for our program during the off season to prepare hard for what we know will be a challenging spring."
The Nittany Lions begin 2011 with a three-game home stand. Penn State will host Binghamton on Saturday, Feb. 19, at 1:30 p.m.; Notre Dame on Sunday, Feb. 27, at 1 p.m.; and Ohio State on Saturday, March 5, at 1:30 p.m. Penn State's first road game follows quickly after the home stand with a trip to Villanova on Tuesday, March 8, at 7 p.m.
Tambroni's crew returns home to meet Rutgers on Saturday, March 12, at 3 p.m. before opening up Colonial Athletic Association play at Massachusetts on Saturday, March 19, at 12 p.m. St. Joe's comes to Happy Valley for a conference match-up on Saturday, March 26, at 1 p.m. The Nittany Lions then battle two in-state foes to wrap up the non-conference portion of their schedule, visiting Bucknell on Tuesday, March 29, at 7:30 p.m. and Lehigh on Saturday, April 2, at 1 p.m.
CAA Action continues in earnest for the rest of April with four straight conference games. Penn State hosts Drexel on Saturday, April 9, at 1 p.m. and then closes out its home schedule against Towson on Saturday, April 16, in a 7 p.m. contest. Trips to Delaware (April 23 at 7 p.m.) and Hofstra (April 30 at 7 p.m.) finish off the regular season schedule.
With the top four teams in the seven-squad CAA making the conference play-offs and looking for the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, the semifinals will be held on Wednesday, May 4. The CAA Championship game is set for Saturday, May 7.
Penn State's two early season scrimmages include home dates with Johns Hopkins on Feb. 5 and Hobart on Feb. 12.
The full 2011 Nittany Lion lacrosse schedule can be found here!