Physical Presence and Set Pieces Pave Way to Victory for The Nittany Lions Over St. John’s

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State Nittany Lions continue their 2023 men’s soccer campaign with a very physical win over the St John’s Red Storm.

While the 2-0 final score sent the fans home at Jeffrey Field in jubilation, there were a lot of components that came together for the blue and white to earn the win.

It was a scorcher when talking about the temperature in Happy Valley for the evening of September 4th, which means it was a perfect day on the pitch for college soccer.

From the opening kick, St. John’s brought a very strong defensive pressure that had the Nittany Lions on their heels.

During the first half with that physical pressure, both teams racked up 16 total fouls with St. John’s forward Nigel Griffith and defender Antonio Biggs receiving yellows for their fouls.

Head Coach Jeff Cook liked how his team handled the adversity to start the game but was vocal about how his squad stayed poised and eventually took over.

“The key there in my opinion in soccer is not to react, not to retaliate and I think you have to be very disciplined to do that. I don't know how many yellow cards we had, maybe one or two, but I thought the guys did a good job of staying composed,” Cook said.

Cook also talked about the importance of staying composed and eliminating the styles that can keep you from the end goal.

“You have to keep your focus on the game, you don't want to win the tough guy competition right,” he said. “The pushing and shoving and that kind of stuff you gotta focus on, we got goals we want to achieve and we’ll be in a much stronger position if we have our full team on the field and available.”

After the game's first water break due to a heat advisory, Penn State started clicking offensively and getting shots on goal.

It wasn’t until a St. Johns foul set up a Penn State set piece which was a free kick, an area the Blue and White have failed to convert a lot on in their opening matches.

Defender Matthew Henderson delivered the free kick towards the net which was headed home emotionally by forward and team captain Peter Mangione which broke the deadlock.

Mangione touched on how important it is for the team to get in the right headspace mentally to prepare for these matches.

“I think a lot of it is trusting the work that we do in practice. That’s what I’ve told the team since the summer like we’re prepared physically, tactically, mentally, everything,” Mangione said. “So if we just trust our training and just let that be our confidence then we'll be fine when we step on the field.”

The captain mentioned working on set pieces in practices and why they found success on a play that has given them a hard time.

“It was a good ball out wide and the guy got an unnecessary foul, but we’ll take it and we’ve worked on that set piece a lot in training so credit to [Matthew Henderson] the ball was perfect,” he said.

“I mean I got just the slightest of touches on it and just basically gave it more pace and so credit to him it was a great ball, we’ve done that near post run so our assistant coach is super happy we got a set piece goal.”

The X-factor of today’s game was Matthew Henderson as he not only assisted on the first set piece goal to Mangione but also found the noggin of Stevenson to double their lead.

Henderson, the native of Scotland, spoke on the importance of chemistry with his teammates.

“No it’s just what we’ve been working on in training you know you just build those relationships in training and also a part of it as well I've been really close with my teammates so that helps massively,” he said. “Because last year that was a bad adjustment for me, not knowing everyone and now we’re a super tight group.”

Fifth-year goalkeeper Kris Shakes was sharp with four saves and a clean sheet coming off being named Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week.

While past Friday’s draw over No. 1 nationally ranked Syracuse was emotional, it didn’t stop the Nittany Lions from going out to earn three points over St. Johns nor slowing them down.

Matt Cabram is a fourth-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email mwc5817@psu.edu