Make no bones about it, the Penn State men's lacrosse team wants to go to the NCAA tournament this season.

The Nittany Lions may have taken a huge step in that direction Saturday with a gritty 8-7 comeback victory at No. 16 Cornell (2-2).

"It's a nice emotional win for the kids," Thiel said. "I was proud of the way we came back. We gave up a goal right before the half and that could've broken our backs but we whittled away at it and got a nice win."

A strong snowstorm almost prevented the game from taking place.

"There were many times during the game where I said, 'Why the heck are we playing this game?' " Thiel said. "I've been coaching a long time and I've never seen conditions this bad. How the kids saw the ball, I have no idea."

Assistant coach Lars Tiffany said the weather conditions forced the team to change its defensive strategy, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the Nittany Lions (3-2, 0-1 ECAC).

"Going into the game, we had a plan but it wasn't working," Tiffany said. "We wanted to double team quickly and slide early to double team behind the cage but it wasn't working because of the weather. We just started holding our slides and we tried to make Cornell beat us one on one."

The change obviously worked as the Big Red was unable to score in the second half.

Will Driscoll got the Nittany Lions' ball rolling with two early goals, the first coming just 13 seconds into the game.

Cornell's Galen Beers responded by taking advantage of a Penn State penalty 10 minutes into the first period to cut Penn State's lead to 2-1, and ultimately jumpstarted the Big Red's offense.

Cornell's David Key tied the game at 2-2 with two minutes left in the first period, and Beers gave the Big Red its first lead 43 seconds later at 3-2.

The Big Red's momentum carried into the second quarter as Drew Schardt and Billy Fort put home goals within the first two minutes to extend Cornell's lead to 5-2. Beers tacked on his third goal to give the Big Red its largest lead of the day at 6-2.

Rob Booth finally answered for Penn State five and a half minutes into the period to get the Nittany Lions back to within three. Mike Kern made it 6-4 a minute and a half later and seemingly put the momentum back in Penn State's favor.

But Beers answered again with just 16 seconds left in the period to give the Big Red a 7-4 lead at halftime.

The second half was a different story. The Nittany Lions defensive adjustments combined with impressive goaltending by senior Matt Vallone -- who made 19 saves -- anchored the Nittany Lions' comeback.

Booth netted his second goal to get the Nittany Lions within two and Mike Herscha cut the Big Red to 7-6, 12 minutes into the third period.

Kern then netted his second goal to tie the game at 7-7 six minutes into the fourth period.

The Nittany Lions were then able to stave off a shorthanded situation after Vallone was penalized for slashing with about seven minutes left in the game.

Sean Huss then scored the game-winning goal for Penn State with two and a half minutes remaining.

"This was a real big win for us," Tiffany said. "We're 3-2 now and our two losses are to top 10 teams. We had to get past that because most of the rest of our schedule is against top 20 teams so this win was huge."