Feb. 16, 2018
By Briana Zuccarelli, GoPSUsports.com Student Staff Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa- After a one-goal loss in their season opener against the Towson Tigers, the Penn State Nittany Lions women's lacrosse team learned the key parts of their game they need to work on heading into the remainder of the season.
"There were a lot of question marks that we are continuing to fill," head coach Missy Doherty said. "We graduated half of our starting lineup and most of that was on the defensive end. A lot of that requires experience playing in some tough games, dealing with different situations that come about. We had to go through those during the Towson game."
Due to the changes in the game day schedule requirements, the Nittany Lions were unable to play a game before February 9th and had to jump right into playing a ranked Towson. Doherty explained how this change shifted the teams schedule and didn't give them the opportunity to put a scrimmage in.
"Obviously anytime you're going into a season with a younger team, you want to have that experience," Doherty said, on how an exhibition game could have helped her team. "That being said, we had a lot of learning lessons in our first game."
With losing half of their starting lineup, mostly on the defensive end, the Nittany Lions had to start some young players who have never played in a collegiate game before the matchup last Saturday. Doherty explained that they played around with the lineup during the game in order to find their best defensive unit and will continue working on finding it.
"We were starting a young goalkeeper and starting a new round of defense," said Doherty. "As the game started to progress and we kept going through the game, we kept getting better and better; started to make some defensive stops, started making some big goals and we fought the entire game. We almost scraped our way back to tying it up there in the end, so I like to see the fight."
As the team prepares for the upcoming matchup against Lehigh in Saturday, February 17th, junior Madison Carter expressed that the team is taking the loss as a learning lesson to help the team bounce back.
"As a team I think we can do a better job at taking care of the ball," Cater said. "We kind of had a lot of turnovers. So being confident with the ball and what we're doing on the field. We need to execute all over the field from every single person on the field to people that come off the bench; we need to work together."
While some Nittany Lions are still gaining experience on the field, the game Saturday will provide a familiar opponent for the Penn State program. The Nittany Lions are 25-0 all-time against Lehigh, including wins three straight years.
Carter and senior Katie O'Donnell combined for nine goals in last year's win over the Mountain Hawks, and the team will look to repeat that performance.
No matter what the final outcome is on Saturday, Penn State is ready to gain experience, keep improving, and see where this season takes them.