The Penn State men's lacrosse team didn't have much room for conference losses after falling to Georgetown in its first ECAC game, considering how hard it will be to get a bid to the NCAA tournament without winning the conference.

After Saturday, they have even less.

The No. 18 Nittany Lions lost to No. 11 University of Maryland-Baltimore County 8-7 at the Bigler Deso-Turf field to go to 3-2 overall and 0-2 in the conference.

After going down 4-2 in the second quarter, Penn State scored two goals in 30 seconds near the end of the first half, with junior attacker Will Driscoll's third goal tying things up 4-4. UMBC came out attacking in the second half, scoring three goals in the first five minutes.

After trading the next two goals, the Nittany Lions staged a small comeback with goals by midfielders Michael Kern and Marshall Feldman to come within one with 5:44 to go, while shutting out the Retrievers in the fourth quarter. UMBC goalie Steve Cusa and the Retriever defense stonewalled the Lions the rest of the way, however, and the Lions failed in their second attempt at a conference victory.

"I thought we were the better team today," Penn State men's lacrosse coach Glenn Thiel said.

"They are a tough team, but we lost because we weren't mentally prepared for this game."

"They were very organized and much better at reacting to plays than we were. We gave the ball up way too many times, and made a lot of mental errors."

After three games with 14 saves or more, goalie Matt Vallone came back to Earth, giving up eight goals in 45 minutes of play, with five saves.

The coaches still felt he performed well enough to get the win.

"Vallone played well," defensive coordinator Lars Tiffany said.

"He didn't play as outstanding as he has, but he played well, and when Matt plays well, we should win. Our defense just wasn't sharp today. A few goals happened because I didn't prepare the team well enough. Maybe I didn't present some of the looks they would see in this game to them in practice, but a lot of times we knew what they were going to do, we knew how to counter it, and we couldn't stop it."

Driscoll equaled the Retrievers' Charlie Gipson with three goals on the day, which led all scorers. Sophomore midfielder Marshall Feldman had a break out game with a goal and an assist.

"Feldman was one of our bright spots today," Tiffany said. "He really stepped up his game today. We've been waiting for him to breakout, and we think he's starting to do that."

Senior midfielder Michael Kern had two goals. Sophomore attacker Luke Oglesby added a goal and an assist. Senior midfielder Sean Huss also scored a goal.

The Lions' loss comes at a very bad time for their NCAA tournament hopes. To keep from going to 0-3 in conference, Penn State will have to visit lacrosse-mad Massachusetts to face the No. 7 ranked Minutemen, 5-0 thus far this season, and looking for vengeance after the Nittany Lions defeated them 11-8 at home last season.

"The atmosphere at UMass is going to shock our guys," Thiel said. "They're going to be chomping at the bit, looking to pay us back for last season."

"We're going to play the big boys now, and we better not be making these kind of mistakes, or else we'll get run off the field."