Standing alone

Independent tag gives laxers latitude to do as they please

In the middle of Pennsylvania, No. 17 Penn State is on the outskirts of lacrosse country.

Four hours from New Jersey and three hours from Baltimore, Happy Valley is not exactly the hotspot of lacrosse. Clusters of top schools dot the Northeast to form conferences such as the ACC and Ivy League.

Far away from these leagues, the Nittany Lions stand alone as independents.

As an independent, Penn State has freedom to make its own schedule. Without the necessity of conference games, Penn State can pick and choose its opponents. In a perfect world this would be easy, but not in the world of a lacrosse independent.

"The teams feel that they are giving us a chance," defenseman Hamilton Pollard said. "We try to get Carolina or Virginia on our schedule. Then they say two games your place, four ours. It's not fair. If we played more games here, it would be to our advantage."

Teams like No. 9 North Carolina and No. 6 Virginia can travel a short distance to play top caliber neighbors No. 5 Duke and No. 2 Maryland. Therefore, they do not want to spend the time traveling five hours to Penn State.

Despite the difficulty presented to Penn State, coach Glenn Theil assembled the ninth-toughest schedule of Div. I teams as ranked by Face-Off '98 magazine. Competition featuring two-time defending national champion Princeton proves the difficulty of the Lions' 1998 season.

"We have the best schedule we have had in Penn State history," Pollard said. "We play five of the top 22 teams. I don't think we need a conference."

Theil said the new push for conferences comes from the NCAA Tournament committee. With more league play, automatic bids could be issued to conference winners.

But again, this idea could affect Penn State. The location of the school hinders the Lions' chances of entering a competitive conference.

"I don't know what conference we could go in," Theil said. "But I don't think it will materialize. It is a mistake in my mind for people to jump into conferences just because somebody on the committee thinks it will work out better."

Penn State would not be the only team affected by the formation of more conferences. Other top-ranked lacrosse schools that exist outside of the Northeast clusters would also suffer.

Teams like No. 18 Notre Dame and No. 13 Butler, which are isolated by their locations, have been able to succeed without the formation of conferences.

"It would be a benefit to some if in the near future, the NCAA gives automatic qualifiers to the leagues," Theil said. "But typically, if you are good enough to win a league, you are good enough to get in anyway."