In addition, the Lions seemed to struggle mightily in rising to the occasion for big games. Time and time again, it seemed as though the Lions turned the corner and were ready to be the dominant team that they could have been, but it simply never happened.
This was certainly the case on Tuesday night. Following a disheartening loss to Northwestern in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament, Penn State still managed to snag the 10th seed in the NCAA tournament, despite its propensity toward tying games it should have won.
The game started out as a wide-open, end-to-end battle between two very good, very stylish soccer teams. Both teams had their chances in the first half, but neither got on the board until Penn State's smartest player lost his head.
In the 31st minute, junior midfielder and team co-captain David Walters attempted to play a long pass back to keeper Conrad Taylor, who appeared to be unprepared for the ball.
Taylor charged, but was beaten to the ball by Tulsa sniper Ryan Pore, one of the nation's best goal scorers. Pore dribbled around a prone Taylor and buried the shot in the wide-open net.
"It was my fault, 100 percent," Walters said. "There was nothing anybody else could do on the team. If you give Pore a chance like that, he is going to score."
The goal seemed to suck the life out of both the team and stadium, and the Lions played fairly listless soccer for the rest of the first half.
In the second half, Penn State came out firing and had numerous scoring chances before Simon Omekanda put home a breakaway attempt of his own on a beautiful and partially redemptive ball from Walters.
Following the equalizer, the game took on a much more physical nature and this ended up costing the Lions dearly.
Pasi Karppinen, whose return from a lengthy injury was intended to give Penn State's defense a lift, foolishly drove Pore to the turf with a shoulder after already receiving a yellow card earlier in the game, and he was promptly ejected.
The rough play continued following Karppinen's ejection, and the teams received a combined eight yellow cards on the evening.
Penn State seemed to be energized by the ejection, and the team attacked relentlessly for much of the remainder of half, spurred on by the strong play of senior co-captain Gabe Bernstein, who saw his first significant action after returning from a hamstring injury that had plagued him since the season's infancy.
The Lions out shot Tulsa 23-11 throughout the regulation and overtimes, and managed to hit the crossbar four times, including one attempt off of a Bernstein header that nearly provided the most storybook ending imaginable. But it was not to be, and after two scoreless overtime periods, the game went to a penalty kick shootout.
Chad Severs and Bernstein buried their kicks for the Lions, but Tulsa keeper Domanic Cervi managed to stone Brian Devlin, the third shooter, and after Cervi slammed the door by stopping the fourth shooter as well, the Lions' season was over with exactly zero postseason victories.
"We're done for the year, that's it," Gorman said. "I think we were the better team, but on the night, we didn't win. When it goes to a penalty shootout, it's Russian Roulette."
