Adorned with their new conference championship t-shirts and hats, the Penn State women's soccer team appeared like nothing in the world could bring it down.
Junior defender Lindsay Bach had just hoisted the Big Ten trophy for her team after beating No. 12 Ohio State 3-0. Though Penn State's seventh consecutive championship had been wrapped up the weekend before, sweeping the conference at Jeffrey Field made it that much sweeter for the No. 3 Nittany Lions (14-1-1, 10-0 Big Ten).
"Cloud nine, that's the only way to describe it," senior forward Sophie Hiler said. "Winning the Big Ten is hard, let alone doing it seven consecutive years. We're all so happy, so proud of ourselves. We're very excited. It's a team thing and we did it together."
Against Ohio State (10-3-3, 6-1-1) the Lions did it as a team as good as they had all season. Controlling things from the get-go, Penn State came out not as a team that was content with the already sealed-up title, but with a burning desire to wipe out all Big Ten teams.
With the Buckeyes the only thing keeping them from perfection, the Lions had no need for any added motivation.
"It's the most amazing win just because we have such a rivalry with [Ohio State]," Bach said. "And finishing out the Big Ten at home. We just came out and played with so much intensity."
In the first half the Lions did something that they didn't do all season. They scored two goals in the first half. Heading into the game they had only eight first-half goals, with 26 coming in the second. Hiler scored the second goal in the half and instigated the "own goal" in which the ball was knocked in by a Buckeye player. The way that Penn State opened the game gave Ohio State no chance of garnering any momentum early.
"Obviously we're happy to win [the Big Ten title] last week, but this is icing on the cake," Penn State coach Paula Wilkins said. "I was happy with the team's performance and the way they came out."
As another opponent walked off Jeffrey Field empty -- Ohio State is the 36th team in a row to have that feeling -- Penn State's confidence just keeps growing, along with its accomplishments.
Going 10-0 in the conference only happened once previously in the team's history, back in 2000. The Lions also set a school record for least amount of goals scored in conference play, only allowing one.
The shutout, the untainted record, the pure domination of a pretty good team all tasted a little better because it was the Buckeyes.
"It was huge," Hiler said. "The only team to ever do it was the 2000 team. It was very important to me. It was one of our goals coming into this game, not to only get a shutout, but to go undefeated in the Big Ten. To beat them because they're a great team and we just love to beat them."
Penn State now has a school-record seven straight shutouts and junior goalkeeper hasn't given up a goal in another record span of 690:11. Junior forward Tiffany Weimer scored in every conference game and has 19 goals on the season.
Things have been pretty consistent all year as the Lions head into their final two regular season games, followed by the Big Ten tournament. They haven't lost in 15 tries and if teams are looking forward to another chance at Penn State in the tournament, the Lions welcome it.
"[Ohio State] has been on a roll and they said at the end of the game 'We'll see you in the tournament,' " Bach said. "That's fine. We're ready. We're ready for the challenge and for the past seven years we've had that target on our backs."
