March 25, 2008

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (UWIRE) --

With only four conference games on the schedule this season, each one bears a heavy weight.

Instead of running through a lengthy Big Ten schedule, the No. 18 Penn State women's lacrosse team has only four chances to improve its conference ranking in the five-team ALC. The Nittany Lions' conference record determines their seed in the ALC tournament, which could earn the Lions a bid in the NCAA tournament.

With two games against unranked non-conference opponents, this weekend will set the tone for the Lions' season. If they continue to struggle against the inferior non-conference competition, the future ranked conference opponents will provide an even steeper hill to climb.

The Lions tallied one win in last year's ALC tournament after going winless in the conference during the regular season. Based on the Lions' play as of late -- punctuated by a 10-7 loss at No. 20 Vanderbilt for their conference opener -- they look to be on a similar path.

With two weeks before their next ALC opponent, this is a crucial time for a turnaround.

The Lions will face two unranked opponents this weekend followed by games against No. 3 Maryland and No. 9 North Carolina the following weekend.

The Lions have shown moments of brilliance but have yet to put it all together. In its last five games, Penn State has done a superb job with starting strong and staying with its opponents for the most part, but the problem has often been in the second half.

The Lions' opponents have a three-goal edge in the first half. In the second half, the gap is eight.

For the past month, Penn State coach Suzanne Isidor and her players have attempted to make sense of the wall the Lions can't seem to get around.

A lack of offensive execution and too many turnovers are a couple of the possible explanations the team has used.

On the defensive side of the ball, the Lions have had to adjust to senior Christina Buttle's injury in that time. Isidor said the Lions recovered from the injury with stellar play from freshman Maggie Dunbar in particular, but the Lions still couldn't piece together a victory.

The team seems to have all the pieces in place even when a valuable player goes down, but there is still something missing at this point of the season -- confidence.

The Lions have been mentally outmatched in more than one game this season -- the last being against Vanderbilt where the Lions outshot the Commodores and caused more turnovers on the defensive end. Despite Penn State's statistical advantage, Vanderbilt was the stronger team in the second half when it outscored the Lions, 6-4

Before the Lions are hit with more disappointments, they need to find a cure if they want to post a win against ranked and conference opponents. Five ranked opponents stand in the Lions' path for their last eight games of the season.

At this point, the Lions should only benefit from facing non-ranked opponents to try to right the wrongs in a gametime situation before the heavy hitters appear on the opposite side of the field.

Julie Reis is a junior majoring in telecommunications and is a Collegian women's lacrosse writer. Her e-mail address is jgr145@psu.edu.

(C) 2008 Daily Collegian via UWIRE