Penn State Women’s Lacrosse Analysis: Early season observations

It’s a brand new lacrosse season in Happy Valley and the Nittany Lions have already faced formidable foes in non-conference play.

On Tuesday, the Pitt Panthers flipped the script on Penn State after having lost to the Nittany Lions 13-5 early last season.

The blue-and-white did strike first on a free-position goal from junior attacker Erika Ho. With 11:46 to go in the first quarter, the floodgates opened for Pitt. The Panthers scored 11 consecutive goals, three of which were scored by senior Jenna Hendrickson.

The Penn State offense would come back to life as Brooke Hoss notched a hat trick while Ho added two more. Elise Smigiel, Delaney Radin, Lauren Saltz and Emma Kelly would also find the back of the net on the Nittany Lion scoring run.

The effort would be too little, too late as the Panthers won 12-10. The win was Pittburgh’s first in the history of the series.

The loss marked another instance of Penn State falling behind on scoring runs. The Nittany Lions squandered a 7-4 lead to Richmond when the Spiders went on an eight-goal scoring run, capping off another 12-10 Penn State loss.

The loss came despite Penn State outshooting Richmond 34-25 and gaining 16 draw controls compared to Richmond’s 10. The Spiders also turned the ball over 16 times while Penn State amassed 11 turnovers.

The Nittany Lions, now sitting at 2-2 on the young season, have also experienced success. The team gutted out a 13-11 win at Saint Joseph’s and later beat Bucknell 16-4.

It’s clear that a Penn State team that entered the season ranked at No. 19 in the preseason Inside Lacrosse poll is wanting more. The Nittany Lions finished a respectable 11-8 last year, losing 14-12 to Northwestern in the Big Ten championship game. The blue-and-white would go on to lose in a 14-13 heartbreaker to James Madison in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

Senior Ellie Hollin received high praise in the preseason as a consensus first-team All-American. She was also placed on the Tewaaraton Award watch list.

Sophomore goaltender Sydney Manning is coming off of a season in which she was named Big Ten Freshman of the Year.

The freshmen are likely to play key roles once again this season as the Nittany Lions have 12 on their roster. Ellie Wisch has already made contributions offensively with four goals and an assist thus far.

Ho has arguably made the biggest jump for Penn State. The junior has already tallied 10 goals through four games after having only scored seven all of last season.

Looking ahead, Penn State is scheduled to face Drexel in a Wednesday home matchup at 4 p.m. The Dragons are also 2-2 on the year with losses to UConn and No. 12 Penn. The Nittany Lions lost to Drexel on the road 10-8 last season.

Drexel redshirt senior Anna Maria Gragnani is coming off of a monster eight-goal performance in a 14-12 win over Harvard. Grad student Allison Drake has totaled 14 goals so far.

With the bulk of Drexel’s offense coming from Gragnani and Drake, the Nittany Lions will know who to hone in on. Gragnani also has 22 draw controls this season while Penn State’s Ho sits at 23, likely making for some great draw battles at Panzer.

A win over Drexel would be a big statement for Penn State going forward as improvement in the regular season non-conference slate would pay dividends. The Nittany Lions only went 2-4 in these games last season.

Penn State has games with Cornell and Princeton coming up before entering Big Ten play against Maryland on March 13.

A 1-0 mentality will be key for the Nittany Lions moving forward.

Isaac Hallock is a second-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email idh5055@psu.edu.