After dropping back-to-back games and three of the last four, the Penn State men's lacrosse team is getting back to basics.

As the Nittany Lions (2-3) prepared for their next game, at 1 p.m. tomorrow against Fairfield (4-2) in Holuba Hall, they focused on correcting the mistakes they have made during their current slide, especially the last two games.

"I'm not too happy when we play like we played the last two games," Penn State coach Glenn Thiel said. "When we play fine and lose, that doesn't bother me much, but when we don't play good lacrosse and lose, it bothers me."

In those games, the Lions lost by a combined score of 19-7. Duke routed the Lions, 12-2, and is now the third-ranked team in the country. The Blue Devils dominated every facet of the game, excluding face-offs, from start to finish and completely shut down the Penn State attack. They out-worked and executed better than the Lions.

Last Saturday's loss to Stony Brook was a different story. Penn State led for the majority of the game, taking a 5-4 advantage into the final quarter. The Lions out-shot the Seawolves 38-29 and had opportunity after opportunity to put the game away, but poor execution and sloppy play let the Seawolves hang around. Stony Brook scored three unanswered goals in the final period for the 7-5 upset.

"We have to get back to fundamentals," Thiel said. "We had opportunity after opportunity Saturday, and when push came to shove we didn't make the pass that had to be made. Our fundamentals were atrocious on offense. We just have to go back to square one with fundamentally good, sound catching and throwing skills. That's what we've emphasized this week."

At practice this week, the Lions did exactly that as they prepared for the Stags. They worked diligently on running the offense, and ended practice with passing and throwing drills. The coaches and players both emphasized the importance of fundamentals to preventing and correcting mistakes, especially because opportunities have been there for the taking.

"You have to look at the mistakes you made," co-captain Marc Young said. "There's a lot of stuff we're seeing on film that we didn't see during the game. You have to make sure you go back and look at that kind of stuff and learn from it real quick. We have used the week to implement that stuff."