Earlier this season Penn State men's lacrosse coach Glenn Thiel said his team was capable of beating anybody in the country on any given day. Then he added, "We could lose to anyone, too."

Truer words have never been spoken. After upsetting then No. 14 Ohio State in the season opener, 9-7, the Nittany Lions went in the wrong direction losing five of their next six games. Two of those losses occurred when the Lions (4-5, 2-1 ECAC) held leads deep into the second half.

But at some point during the past two weeks this team decided to take matters into its own hands. Collectively, the Lions have been playing their best lacrosse of the season of late.

Tomorrow at 1 p.m. the Lions will aim for their third straight victory when they host lowly St. John's in a conference matchup at Jeffrey Field.

The success the Lions have had in the past two games hasn't been because of some newfound revelation. It's simple. They have outworked their opponents, they have won the majority of face-offs and groundballs, and they have played team ball.

For four quarters.

"We finally started scrapping for the ball. We don't assume that someone's gonna get the ground ball. We go get it and worry about the rest later," Thiel said.

This week, and for the second time this season, Greg Gurenlian was named ECAC Defensive Player of the Week.

Gurenlian sets the tone on offense when he cleanly wins his share of face-offs and groundballs. He leads the ECAC with 75 groundballs with an 8.33 groundballs per game average.

On paper, the Red Storm don't appear to be a frightening challenge tomorrow. They only have two wins on the season and are losers of five straight. That alone is enough to frighten Thiel.

"It's a scary program because they play everybody close. If you have one guy who's not ready to play, they could beat us," Thiel said.

"Our goal is to get a win and get to .500," he said.

A few Lions whom Thiel has been waiting on to step up have contributed greatly recently, one being sophomore attackman Brian Boyle. He is considered the point man on offense, seeking to get his teammates involved. Boyle knows his team can ill-afford to lose a game at this crucial stage of the season, especially against a team that hasn't in almost a month.

"If we keep getting better and better, who knows? We can run the table and hopefully make the playoffs and I think we'll get better each time we play from here on out," Boyle said.