Under Barry Gorman's tenure as Penn State men's soccer coach, the Nittany Lions have been a team that stresses an attacking style of play. At this weekend's Ohio State Classic in Columbus, the No. 23 Lions seemed to be the ones under attack.
Penn State (0-2) was shutout twice, losing to No. 8 New Mexico (2-0) on Friday, 2-0, night followed by a 1-0 loss at the hands of Marquette (1-1) Sunday.
In the season opener, an injured and inexperienced Penn State squad simply could not handle New Mexico's Hermann Trophy candidate Jeff Rowland. Rowland, last season's Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Co-Player of the Year, scored both goals in the Lobos' 2-0 victory on a game-high four shots.
He started the scoring at the 23:31 mark and New Mexico never looked back.
The Lobos out-shot the Lions 12-9 and put away Penn State with solid defense after Rowland's second goal 18 minutes into the second half.
Only one of the nine Penn State shots made it on net, allowing New Mexico goalie Mike Gracsyk to notch an easy shutout. The Lobos went on to win the tournament with a 1-0 overtime win against No. 18 Ohio State (1-1).
"We had to rely too much on inexperienced players," Gorman said. "New Mexico stuck to its game plan and did what it had to do to win."
Sunday, it looked as though Marquette was going to make Penn State's short trip west an extremely painful one.
The Golden Eagles took an early 1-0 lead when freshman forward Duncan Silvert-Noftle beat Penn State goalie Conrad Taylor just 6:33 into the contest. Marquette continued its pressure in the first half, out-shooting the Lions, 4-1. With a one-goal deficit, things looked grim for Penn State at halftime.
The second half, however, was a different story.
Penn State finally looked like the attacking team that Gorman is noted for, taking it to the Golden Eagles.
The Lions controlled the play and out-shot Marquette, 5-1. In the final 15 minutes, the Penn State attack had four good looks but could not convert.
In fact, despite controlling the play, the Lions failed to register a single shot on net.
Silvert-Noftle's early goal held up, and Penn State was shutout for the second straight game.
"We played better than we did Friday night," Gorman said. "We dominated the second half, more or less, but we didn't create any major clear-cut chances. We are missing some key players, so inexperience had a lot to do with the way we played."
In the tournament, the inexperience clearly showed, especially offensively. The Lions only recorded one shot on goal in their two games and never really got anything going.
Obviously, starting the season by getting shutout two games in a row is not what the Lions had in mind, but there were a couple of bright spots in the form of freshman forward Jason Yeisley and junior defender Markku Viitanen.
The two were named to the Ohio State Classic all-tournament team. Yeisley and Viitanen each had one shot, and their play helped keep the Lions in both games.
