Penn State Takes Down Stony Brook

Story posted February 19, 2018 in

UNIVERSITY PARK Pa. – The Penn State Men’s Lacrosse team defeated Stony Brook 15-8 at Panzer Stadium.
Ten seconds was all it took for Penn State to draw first blood as Kevin Fox ran straight to goal after picking the ball up after the faceoff.

A mere 16 seconds later Mac O’Keefe put the Nittany Lions up 2-0. A few seconds later, Penn State scored again to end the opening minute of the game with a 3-0 lead.

After their weak start, Stony Brook managed to get their bearings and played the Nittany Lions even the rest of the first quarter to end it down 6-3.

After the high-octane first quarter, the action slowed down a bit and the Nittany Lions went into the half up 8-4.

The second half was a bit sloppy at times as driving snow started to fall, making visibility considerably worse than it had been in the first half.

A slow, uneventful third quarter yielded only three goals and sent the game into the fourth quarter with the Penn State lead sitting at 9-6.

Though Stony Brook played from a few goals behind for virtually the entire game, they had whittled the Penn State lead down to 9-7 and looked like they were ready to make a run at it.

Penn State finally felt a little pressure and responded with a run of four straight goals to put the game beyond any reasonable doubt.

The Stony Brook bench that had been so active all game, as they tried to motivate their starters to an upset over the

No. 16 team in the country, finally realized that the game had gotten away from them.
Stony Brook managed another goal to stop the run, but Penn State responded with two more to close the game out.

Mac O’Keefe had three goals in this contest to put his season total at 10 after three games. Kevin Hill exploded for four goals to put his season total at nine. Nick Spillane chipped in with two assists to give him six on the season.

Despite the impressive scoreline, Coach Jeff Tambroni didn’t think his team played particularly well.

“I didn’t think we played well in the offense or defensive end, but I thought our faceoff unit really carried the day,” Tambroni said. “They made us feel a lot better than we should have throughout the afternoon.”

As Tambroni mentioned, Penn State dominated the faceoffs during the game, winning 20 vs Stony Brook only winning seven. This gave Penn State a huge advantage in the amount of possession they had and really gave them the game today.

The Nittany Lions will stay at home and take on Robert Morris in their next contest on Saturday and will look to extend their winning streak to three.

 

Patrick Murphy is a freshman majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email pqm5315@psu.edu.