Even in a huge Big Ten win to boost team spirits, the Penn State men's soccer team potentially suffered a terrible loss.

Senior forward Simon Omekanda notched a goal and an assist, but his front-line companion Jason Yeisley suffered a knee injury during the Nittany Lions' 3-1 win against No. 27 Michigan State (5-2-0, 0-1) at Jeffrey Field yesterday.

The Lions (2-4-1, 1-0) successfully began their defense of the 2005 conference championship with the victory.

"Scoring three goals against a team like Michigan State is good," head coach Barry Gorman said. "I just hope the win doesn't come at a price."

During a second-half offensive charge, Yeisley knocked knees with a Spartan defender and appeared to be only shaken up. Soon after, however, Yeisley went down again and was helped off the field.

Gorman said it appears to be an MCL injury to Yeisley's left knee, but won't know for certain until test results come back.

Yeisley was wearing a brace and walked on crutches for the remainder of the game.

The injury put a damper on a contest in which the Lions scored as many goals as they had in their first six games combined.

Omekanda got the home crowd of 1,421 into the game early, when only two minutes into the game he floated a perfect pass into the box to junior Stephen Reihner, who slammed it past Spartans goaltender Jason Tillman into the upper-left corner of the goal.

But Omekanda was not done yet. In the second half, he would capitalize on a no-call that had Spartans faithful roaring at the referee.

Junior goalkeeper Conrad Taylor used his hands to corral a ball that appeared to be passed to him by a teammate during a Michigan State scoring chance, which would have resulted in a penalty kick.

Instead, Taylor punted the ball downfield to sophomore Barkley Miller, who found Omekanda in the box.

Shooting with his back to goal and hooking the ball around a line of defenders, he scored his first goal of the season.

"I was isolated a lot and I tried to put myself into position," Omekanda said. "That's how I scored."

It wasn't all offense for Penn State. Taylor made nine saves -- a number of them spectacular -- helping to neutralize a Michigan State offense that never got jump-started in the Big Ten opener.

"We did a good job of a getting our guys to the ball," Taylor said. "We always have the bodies and size in there."

Taylor did allow a header from Louis Stephens III with nine minutes left, pulling the Spartans within one.

But the goalkeeper could breathe a sigh a relief shortly thereafter. Less than three minutes later, Miller scored off of a free kick from senior Jeff Chambers.

"We're scoring goals now and not conceding stupid ones," Gorman said. "But we're a little concerned now for other reasons. We won't know [about Yeisley] until we get a full injury report.

"We have a number of options that we can use, but freshmen going against upperclassmen sometimes is a little tough. They don't have that extra step."