Leadership is essential for a team to be productive.

That adage especially holds true when a team loses seven starters from the prior season.

This is the case for the Penn State men's lacrosse team, which returns just three starters from last year's fourth-place ECAC team.

The Nittany Lions finished last season at 7-6 overall and 2-4 in the ECAC. The Lions haven't had a losing season under head coach Glenn Thiel since 1985.

The Lions are projected fourth in the ECAC by the coaches and are 16th in Lacrosse Magazine's preseason poll.

The roster features just three seniors and two-thirds the roster is comprised of freshmen and sophomores.

Figuring to lead the charge for the Lions is senior captain Will Driscoll, who has been named to the 2002 Preseason All-ECAC Team. Driscoll finished ninth in the NCAA last year in goals per game, tallying 2.92.

"I think I'm going to be very important as a leader," Driscoll said. "I think our younger guys have a lot of enthusiasm about the game of lacrosse."

Fellow captain Tim Emmick will provide Driscoll with a viable second threat and should help to overcome the loss of All-ECAC attacker Eric Wood.

Junior Chris Garrity will protect the cage for the Lions, as he replaces Matt Vallone. Garrity played in eight games last year and recorded 43 saves in 58 opportunities for a stellar .741 save percentage.

"He's as good as anybody in the country," Thiel said. "We are going to count on him a lot. He is going to have to make saves for us and he is going to have to lead the defense."

Perhaps the biggest change the team will undergo is in the midfield. The Lions lost Ted Holmes, Mike Kern, Randy Kleinman, Sean Huss and Kevin Haggerty to graduation.

Junior Marshall Feldman will be the leader of the first unit midfield this season after commanding the second unit last season. Junior Rob Booth will join Feldman and will be the face-off specialist after sharing those duties last year with Haggerty.

Senior captain Sean Droogan will lead the second unit.

Some freshmen are expected to get playing time due to the losses in the midfield.

"We play a lot of guys, probably more than we have in different years," Thiel said. "There are some key (freshman) guys. Mike Jacober has done a real nice job. Will Jones in the midfield and Will Cutler will get playing time on the attack."

The defensive unit returns Matt Zappia and sophomore Matt O'Malley is expected to fill the other starting spot. The Lions will add junior transfer David Smith from the University of Maryland at Baltimore County and he could see time as the third defender on close defense.

Six-foot-four sophomore Rob Bateman will fill the long-stick position.

"Our defense is going to be the mainstay early," Thiel said.

"There is some experience there. We've got pretty good depth there because of the kids we played last year. We have six to seven good defensive guys."

The Lions will be hard pressed to get the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament by winning the ECAC as eight of their 13 opponents are ranked in the preseason poll.

The Lions will play an exhibition game at Lehigh on Saturday. Their first regular season game will be in South Bend against Notre Dame on Feb. 24.