TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Following a pair of 1-0 wins over No. 18 South Carolina and Wake Forest in the previous two rounds of the NCAA Tournament, No. 14 Penn State will now travel to Tallahassee, Florida, in a matchup with fifth-ranked, and No. 1-seeded, Florida State with a spot in the College Cup on the line.
This will mark the fourth time in five years that the Blue & White have made it to the NCAA quarterfinals.
"Experience I think helps bring a lot of confidence," said redshirt senior defender Maddie Nolf, who is personally playing in her fourth NCAA quarterfinal. "There's really nothing different about a soccer game, it's just a more important game. We're going to do the same thing – attack the game and have a lot fun."
Head coach Erica Dambach is hoping her team's extensive postseason experience and exposure will give Penn State an advantage and help the program advance on.
"I think it's important to have been there before to know the rhythm, especially here we have a holiday week and it's important to know how to handle that time period," Dambach said during the Thanksgiving week. "It's where all the players on this team want to be."
"I think there's a feeling of the players wanting more and that's very important this time of year. They're not satisfied with advancing to a particular round. They want their season to go through December."
For Dambach, her program's quarterfinals match with the Seminoles will certainly carry a little more significance than usual. Dambach was hired to be a part of Florida State's staff as an assistant coach in 2005, and she worked under Mark Krikorian, who is still the team's head coach today, before coming to Penn State.
"Well certainly Mark [Krikorian] has played an important role in my life and I have a ton of respect for the way he runs his program and who he is as a coach," Dambach said of her coaching counterpart for Friday's game. "He's a good friend and I'll enjoy the opportunity to go up against him for the fourth time. It's always a good rivalry."
The Nittany Lions and Seminoles last met when Penn State eliminated Florida State in the 2012 College Cup semifinals by a score of 2-1 in overtime.
"I remember the work rate that was required to stop Florida State," Dambach said looking back at that 2012 match. "I remember the ebbs and flows and how important it was to manage those moments."
Flash-forward to 2018, and Krikorian's team represents many of the same challenges as they did six years ago, and Dambach will make sure her team is well-prepared.
"They love to have the ball. They love to play around their opponent," Dambach said of a Florida State team that sits at 17-4-3 on the year. "They'll make you chase, but so do we. We are as good at it as anyone in the country, so it's going to be a back and forth game. We're going to have our chances and it's going to be about who finishes those chances."
As for improvements that need to be made by Penn State, who have won twelve of its last thirteen games, before Friday's match, Nolf talked about just keeping the ball rolling and improving collectively as a unit.
"We've been growing all year and it's all about growth," Nolf said. "It's about working on mastering your game. You're never done improving."
"It's just the little things that we can improve on that we always want to work on so we can go do the same thing against Florida State," Nolf added.
Dambach, Nolf, and the rest of Penn State will face off against Florida State in a highly anticipated match with a College Cup berth on the line Friday afternoon at 2 p.m. at the Seminole Soccer Complex.