At the Georgetown Hoya Invitational, the Penn State men's golf team will try to rectify its up-and down play in its final tournament of 2006.

This weekend, the fall season will come to an end as the golfers travel to Beallsville, Md., to compete at the Four Streams Golf Course. Penn State finished sixth in this event last year.

After a slow start in the Wolverine Invitational, the Nittany Lions rebounded to capture a share of the team title in the VCU/Mattaponi Springs Shootout. Then, they slipped again to finish 10th in the Alister Mackenzie Invitational.

Last week, the golfers cracked the top five again in the Penn/Big 5 Classic, but felt they could have done better given the level of competition.

"It's a big deal that we finish well in this tournament because it won't be much fun coming back home if we play bad knowing we don't have one next week," junior Robert Rohanna said.

With the spring season not set to begin until March, this event is important for the confidence of the team going forward.

"If we finish well in this tournament, it's going to be a lot better this winter," sophomore Chad Bricker said.

Bricker was disappointed with his play last week. After shooting 76 in the first round of the Big 5 Classic, he faltered and posted an 84 on Sunday to end the weekend tied for 44th. He feels that he and all of his teammates have the potential to do much better, though.

Rohanna and freshman Kevin Foley led the Lions in the last tournament, tying for 10th with a pair of 9-over-par scores. Still, they felt they could have won, given the level of competition.

"It wasn't a great week for us," Rohanna said. "I don't think it could have been much of a worse tournament for us."

Despite performing worse than he expected, the team tied for fifth overall, a sign that talent is not an issue for Penn State. With two freshmen, Foley and Jim Markovitz contributing on a regular basis, this fall season was a good time to adjust to collegiate golf.

"They're getting a lot of experience," Bricker said of the freshmen. "With our win in Virginia, that gave us a lot of confidence as a team. They've played against the best juniors before they were in college so you have to do the same thing you do as a junior golfer."

The Lions got a chance to get some good practices in this week because of favorable weather, helping them to do well this weekend. The tournament begins on Saturday morning and will end on Sunday afternoon.