Feb. 5, 2015
By Maria Canales, GoPSUsports.com Student Staff Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Starting his fifth season, men's lacrosse head coach Jeff Tambroni sees nothing but opportunities for the program and his team. The first test of the season will be the Catamounts from Vermont, who visit Happy Valley on Saturday for the season-opener at noon.
The Catamounts have not been to Happy Valley since March of 2008 when they lost to the Nittany Lions 7-4. The following year, Penn State traveled to the Green Mountain State and went on to defeat Vermont, 7-5. Under Tambroni's leadership, the Nittany Lions will look for a strong start to the regular season.
"This will be my first time coaching against Vermont," said Tambroni. "I know we have film from some of their games in 2014 so we'll look a little bit into some of their general tendencies because I think it's important. I know they have a couple of really good offensive players, their leading scorer was a freshman last year so he'll obviously be a key to our defensive game plan."
Tambroni and the rest of the coaching staff have been hard at working preparing the team for the season opener.
"In a typical game week, Monday we review the film with our team," said Tambroni. "Then we get in the weight room just to get our guys back together exercising, sweating a little bit to start the week off. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays is typically the bulk of when we get our lacrosse work in. So those three days is heavy film work, heavy on field with a lift sprinkled in on Wednesday."
Tambroni emphasized that days off after games are important for recovery, as well as explained that on Fridays the team does a visual walk through to get in the game day mindset. A walk through gives the team a final bit of confidence before game day, as well as allows players to visualize the game day atmosphere and do any final mental preparations.
However, all the hard work the team has put in won't become a reality until this weekend.
"When the guys walk in the locker room on Saturday morning it'll be the first time the freshman have ever seen our game uniforms," said Tambroni. "Our upperclassmen will see it for the first time this year and that's when the heartbeat starts to change a little bit."
Saturday's walk across the parking lot to Holuba Hall will provide the final few moments of calm and introspection before the season officially kicks off against Vermont.
"I think the level of excitement genuinely changes with the reality that the season is finally here and with 13 guaranteed games you don't want to take anything for granted," Coach Tambroni said.