With hopes of continuing a Penn State tradition, the men's lacrosse team will face Lafayette for the 19th time. In a series that began in 1927, the Lions have beaten the Leopards in all 18 previous outings.

The game is set for 2 tomorrow afternoon in Holuba Hall, but there is a possibility of the location being switched to Jeffrey Field or the Astro-Turf outside of Holuba.

Because the team has spent a lot of time practicing indoors, getting used to running on the grass and mud will be a challenge, but Coach Glenn Thiel does not think it should be a big problem.

In their 17th encounter last fall in Lafayette's tournament, Penn State trailed during the whole game until late in the fourth quarter when they came from behind to win the game, 6-5.

"They (Lafayette) have two real good attackmen, a nice defense and a goalie who is capable of being real hot," Thiel explained. "Midfield would be the only position where we might be stronger.

"We've progressed a lot since fall. We did not play everybody in their tournament and our line-ups will be different on Saturday."

Junior attackman Al Born said Penn State's defensive trio of Sean Essig, Paul Gilhool and Paul McKelvey is one of the strongest areas of the team.

"The sophomore and freshmen reserves are also definite strengths," defenseman Marshall Maran added.

Thiel said the race for starting goalie between freshmen Jamie Morse and J.J. Pearl is still too close to decide based on last week's performances in the Penn State Indoor Invitational.

"Morse had a great game for us against Notre Dame," he said. "In the second game (against Nazareth), Pearl had a bad start but got tough in the second half when he had to be."

He said he may alternate goalies all season, see who performs better in certain kinds of games and go from there.

"It's nice to be playing at home," Thiel added. "In the beginning games, we weren't ready for the opening face-offs but I think they learned a lot since then."