It's just in time too -- the Lions will travel to No. 20 Ohio State next weekend.
"I was happy with the defense and the intensity," Penn State assistant coach Lars Tiffany said. "We were whacking them and banging people on the ground, I really liked the intensity."
Coming off a 9-5 exhibition loss at the hands of No. 1 John Hopkins two weeks ago, the Lions lacked the firepower on offense to keep up with John Hopkins without Whitaker, though they battled the Blue Jays tough.
Whitaker scored the first goal for the Lions in the first period to tie the score at 1-1 and later added three assists as the Lions scored seven straight goals to turn a 5-3 game into a rout.
The two teams played a fifth period as well, with each team adding three goals to its totals.
"I thought we played pretty well as a team, there were some shots we didn't finish but we corrected some mistakes we made against Hopkins so that was good," Whitaker said.
Meanwhile, despite the seven-goal improvement in one week by the Lions, Tiffany said the team struggled to execute its six-on-six offense because it failed to react properly to Lehigh's defensive slides.
"I don't know if I can see a big improvement [from two weekends ago]," Tiffany said. "We might have even played better team offense last week but scored more goals this week. Sometimes it works that way."
What did work, however, was LaGrow in net, who made numerous clutch saves and was strong as the anchor of the clearing game. The defense in front of him was solid as well, keeping the Lehigh attack stuck on the perimeter. With goaltending the biggest question mark at the beginning of the season, LaGrow looks poised to change that.
"I thought the defense did a nice job," LaGrow said. "One, two and three goals, I can live with that. The defense was great and it really helped me out. I feel real good."
