April 20, 2018
| |||||||||||||||||||
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. ââ'¬" The No. 12 Penn State men's lacrosse team travels to No. 10 Rutgers for a Sunday night Big Ten showdown in Piscataway, New Jersey at 7 p.m. on Sunday evening as Rutgers hosts the Nittany Lions in High Point Solutions Stadium.
Penn State took last year's meeting, 13-7, in Happy Valley. The Nittany Lions trail the all-time series, 22-43, but have 15-5 over the last 20 meetings.
LAST TIME OUT
The Nittany Lions were looking for a signature win on the season, and a win that would elevate them in Big Ten play. That came on Saturday as Penn State used a balanced offense, and a few spectacular plays to take down Johns Hopkins, and improve their record to 8-4, 2-1 in Big Ten play.
Penn State earned their first win over Johns Hopkins for a now 1-9 all-time record against the Blue Jays behind a seven-point performance from junior Nick Spillane. The attackman registered a tied career-best five assists, adding two goals. Mac O'Keefe finished the day with three goals and an assist, while junior Kevin Hill added three goals as well.
Senior Ryan Keenen scored the opening and the closing goal for Penn State and the Nittany Lions also saw Dylan Foulds, Brian Townsend, Nick McEvoy, and Cole Willard find the back of the cage. Townsend and McEvoy also added assist each to their stat lines, while Robby Black and Bobby Burns each added assists as well.
The Nittany Lions saw Colby Kneese register 14 saves and add a ground ball. At the 'x,' Gerard Arceri went 16-23, adding nine ground balls, while McEvoy went 2-4, and added one ground ball.
UP TO No. 12
The Penn State men's lacrosse team jumped to No. 12 in this week's United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA) Coaches Poll after the Nittany Lions' 14-12 win over then-No. 5 Johns Hopkins.
Penn State also came in ranked No. 12 in the US Lacrosse/ Nike poll and No. 11 in the Inside Lacrosse/Maverick Media poll.
The Nittany Lions were looking for a signature win on the season, and a win that would elevate them in Big Ten play. That came on Saturday as Penn State used a balanced offense, and a few spectacular plays to take down Johns Hopkins, and improve their record to 8-4, 2-1 in Big Ten play.
KEENAN DRAFTED
Penn State men's lacrosse senior Ryan Keenan was selected at the 54th overall pick by the reigning MLL champions Ohio Machine in Wednesday night's Major League Lacrosse draft.
"Being drafted is pretty awesome," Keenan said of being named in the draft. "It's an honor to represent Penn State Lacrosse at the next level and as the years go on you will see a lot more names on this team get drafted. Our team has so much talent and it's an honor to play with these guys every day and I could not have gotten drafted without any of them."
Keenan, a captain for the Nittany Lions, has scored 17 goals out of the midfield and has added eight assists, 20 ground balls, and two caused turnovers.
NITTANY LIONS SHIFTING FOCUS INWARD
Every Monday the coaching staff meets with the team to reflect on their individual performances from the weekend. During this week's session, the Nittany Lions were eager to add to the conversation and bring focus to the areas they feel they need to improve upon.
"There were several decent plays that were made throughout the course of the game, we just didn't connect enough of them," Penn State head coach Jeff Tambroni said. "It was tough. When we talked to our guys about things that needed to be worked on, plenty of hands went up, so it was nice to see our guys have a decent understanding about what needs to be done this week."
Although the team fell short executing plays successfully throughout the game, one positive to emerge was their consistent level of hard work. Throughout several momentum shifts, the Nittany Lions refused to give up or deviate from their style of blue-collar lacrosse.
Full Article: Here
QUAD CORE OF CAPTAINS
The 2018 Nittany Lion squad will be led by senior middies Ryan Keenan, Tanner Peck, and Tripp Traynor, and redshirt junior defender Mike Aronow. When asked about their leadership skills, Head Coach Jeff Tambroni mentioned how each was different, and together they provided a well-rounded leadership core. The quartet has helped the Nittany Lions' program come from a 5-9 record in their freshman season to an improved 12-4, and a No. 1 ranking in the national poll in their junior year, and will look to build upon in 2018.
#BRICKSQUAD MENTALITY
The blue-collar work ethic of Penn State men's lacrosse has been a mainstay under Coach Jeff Tambroni, and even using a brick to symbolize what that means has been in play for a few years, but following the 2017 season, the now-graduated seniors of 2017 gave Tambroni a brick with the engraving "Leave it better than you found it... Class of 2017." "We wanted an identity piece," Tambroni said. "We wanted our program to think about a symbol more visually instead of just conversations with our guys about what we want it to look like. Also, there is a second brick that is passed around by the team to the player with the "most brick mentality" every week. The player who holds the brick chooses who deserves the brick the following week, and they pass the actual brick on to the next deserving player.