Sept. 25, 2014 UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - By Matt Allibone, GoPSUsports.com Student Staff Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.- After the first four games of the 2014 season, the Penn State men's soccer team had scored six goals.
After 89 minutes on Wednesday night against Penn, they had scored the same amount.
Generally a defensive minded, low-scoring squad, the Nittany Lions looked like a new team on Wednesday, scoring six times in a 6-2 win over the Quakers.
"The movement between [the players] was unbelievable," head coach Bob Warming said. "We had to lift a really heavy weight in playing Ohio State (a 1-0 win last Sunday). Their defenders were tremendous and they were tough to beat. Now this was a little easier backline to break down and it showed up on the scoreboard."
The Last time the Nittany Lions scored six goals in a game? Warming was coaching at St. Louis and leading goal scorer Connor Maloney was just four years old. It was 1999 and the Lions beat Villanova 6-3.
As for the last time they scored just five, Warming had 52 fewer wins with Penn State than he does now. That's because it came in his first game at the helm of the Lions, back in 2010 during a 5-0 win against Buffalo.
"Wow," said Maloney after hearing those stats.
"That's pretty cool," midfielder Drew Klingenberg added.
With 17 goals as a team in 2014, the Nittany Lion's outburst on Wednesday accounted for more than a third of their scoring this season. Equally impressive though was the number of players who got the ball in the net.
Five Nittany Lions got on the stat sheet, with Maloney scoring twice and Mikey Minutillo, Brandon Savino, Klingenberg and Riley Grant all netting the ball once.
"It just gives those guys confidence going into the next game," Maloney said. "They're great players and they could definitely have more goals and you'll see it in the next game."
Typically a second half team, Penn State came out of the gates looking to score right from the start against the Quakers.
The Nittany Lions scored twice in the first 16 minutes, and three times in the first half, giving themselves their first two-goal halftime lead of the season with a 3-1 score at the break.
"[Halftime] was definitely a little calmer in the locker room," Maloney said. "We didn't have to make many changes. We just told ourselves keep working harder and getting our goals so we didn't have to keep them around we could get other guys off the bench and in."
After Minutillo got the barrage started less than 10 minutes in, the Quakers fought back, tying the game less than five minutes later when senior Duke Lacroix sent a dagger to the left corner past the reach of Andrew Wolverton, the first goal the star goalie had allowed all season.
Not content to stay tied, the Nittany Lions needed all of a minute and a half to retake the lead, as Savino tallied an unassisted goal to give them a 2-1 advantage.
"It's a hard group, it's a tough group, it's a determined group," Warming said of his team. "Everybody knew at some point, the dam was going to break and we were going to give up a goal. Instead of hanging their heads, it was the completely opposite reaction. They said 'Andrew and the defense have held us for such a long time and it's our turn to turn it on.'"
Maloney would score on an unassisted play 17 minutes later before adding his second goal of the game five minutes into the second half.
The scoring plays gave Maloney a team-leading six goals on the season. When Klingenberg and Grant added goals later in the period however, it was the first time either player had scored all year.
Even in a blowout, it was a sweet moment for Klingenberg. The junior midfielder is known for his gritty and competitive play but had scored just once in his career entering Wednesday.
"I was telling everybody that [scoring] was alluding me for the first couple of games," Klingenberg said. "It was good to get a goal. I'm feeling good right now."
Although he wasn't able to notch his team record 29th career shutout, Wolverton made a number of highlight saves, finishing with eight on the night.
With a game against Michigan coming up on Sunday, the Blue and White will try again to get Wolverton the record, while also trying to remain undefeated in the Big Ten.
"I wouldn't call the goals Andrew's fault," Warming said. "He can make big time saves for us and he's going to need to this weekend at Michigan. They're really good."
