Eckert broke her right thumb against Indiana last weekend, but did not know how severe the injury was at the time. She played the next day against West Chester, only to learn of the break afterwards.
"I tried to play with it and it wasn't really working out," Eckert said.
The Spartans scored the lone goal less than 10 minutes into the contest. Freshman Michelle Ciliberti tipped in a shot by Annebet Beerman, a powerful European-born player.
Michigan State's other star forward from the Netherlands was held scoreless. Veerle Goudswaard, who has an amazing 23 goals this season (three less than the entire Penn State team), was unable to score on three shots. Morett countered Goudswaard's offensive prowess by matching her with defender Sara Cahill, who was successful in thwarting the forward's efforts.
A solid all-around game was once again spoiled by the Lions' failure to score, which has been the team's Achilles' heel all season long.
"Our forwards can score amazing goals, they've done it before in games and at practice," Eckert said. "We're totally capable of doing it ... I don't know what else we have to do to [score more frequently]."
Morett said she doesn't have to make any drastic adjustments up front.
"We're thinking about changes, but a month ago this time our backs struggled against Syracuse," she said. "Hopefully this was just one of our games for our forwards."
But the coach was not hesitant to make changes during the game against Michigan State. Morett moved midfielder Kiersten Wood to forward and defender Bekah Hostetler to the midfield hoping to spark the team.
On the back end, the Lions' defense held strong against the Spartans' high-powered offense for most of the night. One of the best defensive plays Saturday was by Penn State defender Molly Schriver.
After a Spartan deked out three Penn State players and was on her way to an empty-net goal, Schriver was able to jab the ball away to keep the Lions in the game. The back then led the Lions on an offensive rush following the play.
Penn State's best opportunity came early in the second half when Natalie Berrena fired a shot that went by Spartan goalkeeper Christina Kirkaldy, but hit the left goalpost.
After winning seven of their previous eight games, the loss was undoubtedly a difficult one for the Lions. They have come up short in all six of their games against other ranked opponents this season.
Despite the obvious disappointment, Morett remained upbeat afterwards.
"I'm reassured that we can play with one of the beat teams in the conference," she said. "There's not much that we do have to change ... we just need to crank up our intensity going into the goal cage."
The Lions' offensive attack will be getting some help just in time for Friday's conference matchup against Iowa. The co-captain is having her cast taken off tomorrow and should be ready.
"I think we got a lot of confidence from this game," Eckert said. "I don't know if we have to regroup. [This game is] in the past and we just have to get ready for Iowa."
Send an 
