The season can only stay young for so long.

The Penn State women's lacrosse team now has five games under its belt and has shown promise despite a 3-2 record.

The Nittany Lions have used their first few games to see exactly what their team is made of, with 16 underclassmen on the roster. With a young team comes obvious ups and downs, and that is precisely what they have gone through.

"We're a young team and we've been up and down in one game," Penn State women's lacrosse coach Suzanne Isidor said. "The team has it, and they've shown they have it, they just have to work on maintaining it for the entire game."

This task will not get any easier as the Lions prepare to travel to defending national champion Princeton on Saturday.

The game will serve as a true test for the Lions to see just how good they are, knowing that Princeton is always on top of its game.

"We know Princeton is really good, it's always been a fight with them," tri-captain Katie Jeschke said. "We need to focus on the things we need to do with our own game and keep our mind on the good."

The good has been coming from the Lions' attack, which is led by Jeschke and her team-leading 13 goals. Her performance this season has earned her a nomination as one of 21 players for the Tewaaraton Trophy, the most prestigious award in varsity lacrosse.

While her individual run for the award will continue the rest of the season, the Lions as a team must find a way to pull themselves together to avoid falling to 3-3 on the season. The time has come for the Lions to stop talking and prove they are as good as the team that beat Vanderbilt on opening day.

"At the beginning of the season we were talking a lot," Jeschke said. "We were talking about everything we wanted to do. We talked a good game, but after the losses to [JMU] and [Virginia] we realized that we need to prove it."

The Lions are coming off Sunday's win over William and Mary and took Monday and Tuesday off, according to Isidor, because the team was very tired, before getting back to work yesterday.

"I expect the intensity to be a little higher this week," she said. "Having five games under our belts, we're tired of winning a game then losing one we want to string together some wins."

If the Lions are going to put wins together, they need to start now with the season slowly reaching its midpoint.