The men's lacrosse team got a chance to shed some light on its game this weekend -- and a little mud, too.

The Lions (3-3) matched up against Lafayette (0-4) on Saturday and Drexel (0-4) on Sunday for their first games outside. The first one was Penn State's shining moment in the sun, literally and figuratively. They beat Lafayette, 21-7.

However, Penn State's muddy 13-10 victory over Drexel on Sunday was definitely a struggle because of the weather.

"I weighed about an extra 50 pounds. I couldn't get out of the mud," freshman Greg Jackson said. "It was fun though."

During the first contest, Penn State demolished Lafayette. The Lions scored six times in every quarter except the third. The team was held to only three points during that period.

Junior Erik Merkel had four goals against Lafayette. The Lions' dominance also allowed three goalies to log time in the net.

"Lafayette played well in the first period," Coach Glenn Thiel said. "We kind of had control of things from there on."

The matchup against Drexel was a completely different story. The heavy rains and mud slowed down the offense and made netminder Andy King's job even more difficult. Half of Drexel's 10 points came during their seven power plays.

"He made some very nice stops on defense," Thiel said. "But he had some trouble clearing the ball."

Although the transition from artificial turf to grass slowed the team down, the mud made it even more difficult for a quick offense and for attackers to dodge defensemen.

"It was almost down to a walk because of the mud," Thiel said.

Regardless of the weather, this weekend gave the Lions a chance to do some different things on offense and to allow the defense to fine tune its play. One of the biggest changes was to get the midfielders behind the net with the ball, Jackson said.

"When we put them back there," he said, "they were hard to stop."

Jackson was also hard to stop himself. He had two goals and six assists against Lafayette and a hat trick at Drexel. Even in the mud, Thiel said the freshman played a great game.

"He's really been the kind of team guy for us," Thiel added.

Note:

-- The Lions will play the University of Maryland-Baltimore County at 2 p.m. on Saturday.