Feb. 10, 2014
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Head coach Missy Doherty, redshirt junior Lizzy Carney and junior Maggie McCormick met with members of the media during Spring Sports Media Day at the Bryce Jordan Center Monday, Feb. 10.
The seventh-ranked Nittany Lion women's lacrosse team will face Penn in an exhibition Sunday, Feb. 16 before opening the 2014 season at Bucknell Wednesday, Feb. 19.
Missy Doherty
Head Coach
We're really excited for the season. We're coming back [with] a lot of returning players. Eight of our 12 starters last year were freshmen and sophomores. It's been great so far this season; the team has grown a lot through fall ball and preseason. I'm really excited with the strides that we've made from the leadership side to our young players coming in and contributing. The two ladies rights here are going to make a huge difference: Maggie McCormick, one of our junior captains and our leading scorer from last year, and Lizzy Carney, who's coming off of a knee injury from last year but an All-American defender as a sophomore. We're excited not only with these two coming back but with a lot of weapons and we're looking forward to the season starting. We've had a long preseason so the girls are really anxious to start getting on the field and playing some games.
Q: How do you think the strength of your schedule prepares you?
A: Our schedule is really tough. But being at Penn State, that's what you need to do. We want to bring our program to be one of the top in the country and to do that you have to play those teams. It is stressful but it's when you want to excel at a high level you have to test yourself against the best teams. Thankfully, our schedule provides us the opportunity to do that both in conference and out of conference because once our out-of-conference games are over we hop into our conference games, which are pretty tough. It's going to be a hard test but I think this team is well prepared and they're eager to show everybody what we've got.
Q: With you returning top four scorers, what do you expect from that group with so much experience?
A: That experience piece is just great for us. We have a lot of our scorers back but, to credit them, they've really gotten a lot better even from last year. We've been challenging them with new things and to push themselves even harder, and they've responded really well. Not only are we getting those scorers back but I'm hoping they're going to be even better than last year. It's been fun to watch them progress as a team and really start to gel together and it's been nice to see them grow and get even better.
Q: You noted your youth and inexperience in your starting lineup. How have your upperclassmen contributed to preseason?
A: Those (underclassmen) last year, those girls have kind of grown up. We were fairly young last year with a lot of freshmen and sophomores playing, and this year we have a lot of sophomores and juniors playing. They've gained a year of experience playing against some of the top teams in the country so the leadership for this year's team has been better than ever. It's always great as a coach to really rely on some of your players to bring some of the leadership aspects. I'm going into my fourth season here so the girls somewhat know what to expect now and know how to help the younger players, and it's a great position to be in to feel like more is coming from the players than has to come from the coaches. It's been fun to coach them this year, and just watch them interact with each other and lead each other and hopefully that will pay off when we start our games.
Q: What do you think made your teams in the past have so much great success?
A: I luck out being at Penn State. This place is a great place to be a student athlete. It's a fantastic place to be a women's lacrosse player. It's easy to attract hard-working girls to the program and ever since I've gotten here there's been a level of excellence among the student athletes, whether they were girls I recruited or not. Everyone's really brought into the work ethic and the competitiveness that we need to achieve at a high level. It's been fun to kind of grow with them throughout this whole experience and finally get to this year where we have more of our ideas and plans at work. It's just been fun to kind of grow up with them here but when you're at a place like Penn State with all the support that we have behind us, the expectations are high and we know that and we're hoping to perform.
Q: What's the key push to make it to the NCAA semifinals and the championship?
A: We had a huge win last year against Florida, which was No. 2 at the time, and I think with every win or loss you grow. I just really think we need to stay assertive. I think that every team we're going to play this year is really good and we don't want to play on our heels. We want to remain assertive and believe in what we can do and kind of let the results take care of themselves.
Q: What are your thoughts on the depth of the conference?
A: Our conference is incredible. We have Northwestern, Florida, Ohio State, (Johns) Hopkins and Vanderbilt. There's no break in our conference. Normally if you're leading our conference, you're probably in the top five in the country, which I like. I like that competition and we're really happy to not only have a really tough out of conference but when we get to our conference games you know there's an extra excitement about being there, especially this year because next year we'll be in the Big Ten. This is our last year in the ALC and we're going to take a lot of pride leaving our stamp on that conference.
#24 Maggie McCormick
Jr., Attack
Q: How excited are you guys to just get the season going?
A: Very excited. Preseason is long; it's a long five weeks. We love our teammates but we're kind of getting sick of seeing them every day and going against them. It's going to be nice to play somebody with difference colors and a different team. We've gotten a lot accomplished these five weeks; we have one more week to go and a scrimmage on Sunday. You're always ready for the season to start because you practice every day and you look forward to those games.
Q: What are some of your expectations and goals going into this season?
A: Personally, first and foremost, I think this is the year to win (the American Lacrosse Conference). Unlike some of the teams in our conference, we haven't necessarily lost as much. Most of our starters are back and, like Missy said, we have a lot of experience. I think that's first and foremost. We've had tough losses the past two years against Loyola and Princeton so those are going to be two games that we're really going to be looking for a win.
Q: What does your success last year do for your confidence?
A: I'm not sure. I think I've always been somewhat of a confident player. I know who I am and I don't try to be a player that I'm not. Last year's in the past. It was a good a year scoring wise. I'm not sure if the points for me are necessarily in the cards this year, which is a testament to how much better our offense is this year. We're much more balanced. We're much more dynamic. We have a lot more weapons so last year was great but, like I said it, it's in the past. It's just focusing on what I can do for this team this year.
#5 Lizzy Carney
Jr., Defender
Q: Coming off of that knee injury, it's probably great to get back out there?
A: Yeah, I mean definitely. I haven't played a game in probably over a year. It's really exciting to get back out on the field and just perform how I did sophomore year hopefully and I'm looking forward to it.
Q: What are some of your expectations and goals going into this season?
A: The past two years we've made it into the quarterfinals and we're really looking forward to getting into the Final Four and national championship hopefully.