You know that sick to your stomach, end of the world, I just failed a test and my parents are going to kill me if they find out feeling? Don't you just want to curl up in a ball and go to sleep?
That's how the No. 8 Penn State field hockey team must've felt after losing to No. 7 Ohio State in overtime on Sunday.
With four minutes left in the game, senior Annelise Legel scored to send the game to overtime. Momentum, to be cliché, was on the side of the Nittany Lions. But the Buckeyes scored within the first five minutes of overtime to end the Lions' winning streak at 10 games, leaving them wondering, what happened?
Where was that intensity that the team showed against Michigan? Where was that drive to secure the Big Ten title for another year?
"We talked just a little bit after the game and I don't really know how they feel, but I know how I feel," Penn State coach Char Morett said. "I'm disappointed that our number one goal is to compete and to come to play and I don't think we had that from everybody."
The intensity might not have been there against the Buckeyes, but don't expect the Lions to falter in this department again.
And before you give up on certain members of the team and start chanting "Put in Pickett" (backup goalie for sophomore Jen Beaumont), look at the comparison between the 2005 and the 2006 Lions.
At this point last year, Penn State was on a 12-game winning streak. Junior Shaun Banta had 10 goals and Legel had 11. Goalie Megan Akstin had six shutouts and the team had only lost one game.
This year, the streak only lasted 10 games. Banta, who's seven-game scoring streak was snapped on Sunday, already has 13 goals. Legel only has four, but a position change from forward to midfield could factor into that statistic. First-year goalie Beaumont also has six shutouts and the Lions have only lost three games.
The statistics are a bit different
But the parallels are there and this one loss, despite coming at the final stretch of the season, is not the end of the world for this team.
"The Big Ten picture is still wide open, 'cause Ohio State has a loss and we play Indiana in the last game," Morett said. "Everything is in our hands. It's up to us. We control our destiny."
No. 11 Indiana is the only team that is 3-0 in the Big Ten and it still has four conference games on its schedule. Penn State only has three Big Ten games left, and its only formidable opponent will be Indiana in the last game.
With No. 5 North Carolina coming to Happy Valley on Friday, however, the team has to both forget about its loss and learn from it if it wants to be successful.
They know where their faults are and know what to do to fix them.
"Any team can beat any team on any given day. Our motto this year isn't really about who they are," Legel said. "It's about who we are and what we are going to do."
The attitude is there. The opportunities are presenting themselves.
All the team needs now is to capitalize on these opportunities and show once again why it won the Big Ten title last year.
