Last Friday night was huge. Indiana is a national soccer power, and they came to Jeffrey Field as the top team in the Big Ten.

The Penn State men's soccer team shut them out, beating the No. 9 team in the country, 1-0.

Last night at the Jeff, the Nittany Lions lost a gut-wrenching double-overtime game to the No. 13 Lehigh Mountain Hawks. It happened on a goal that happened so fast I would've missed it if I dropped my popcorn -- a distinct possibility considering it was freezing and popcorn was surprisingly difficult to handle with mittens.

Fortunately, there was an upside.

The game meant nothing.

With the regular season winding down, and Penn State (6-9-2, 3-2 Big Ten) lurking near the top of the conference standings with a chance to steal another regular season Big Ten title, the game at Michigan is the only thing significant this week. The Lions are just as in the hunt as they were Tuesday.

Just don't tell them that.

It might've been the more than 100 minutes of running in 35 degree weather and winds that bent flag poles, but when the Mountain Hawks scored two minutes into the second ten-minute overtime, every player in white either collapsed on the field or stood stone-still in his place.

They were certainly dejected. Head Coach Barry Gorman was more visibly upset than I've ever seen him.

"The way that the kids played, and the effort they gave, and to lose like that," Gorman said, trailing off before shaking his head.

He called it disgusting. It was.

It is always hard to swallow home loss, and this one came in sudden death, like a shot to the heart. To put the bitter sugarless icing on the stale cake, the Lions had to sit there and watch the Mountain Hawks celebrate with their throng of fans that made the three-hour drive.

You could consider it the prototypical let-down game, not showing up against a team they could have beaten after last week's Indiana win, but it wasn't.

For 101 minutes the Lions were on their game. The combination of having four forwards injured and a Lehigh defense that extended its shutout streak to seven games made it easy to assume that Penn State would struggle to score.

They played solid defense, and the smallest lapse at the worst time cost them.

The best part about last night, as mean as this may sound, was seeing how the Lions took the loss. It wasn't the usual attitude you want to see, the "we'll bounce back" kind of thing. They were ticked.

As soon as the guys on the field got up, they went straight to the locker room. The few I did see under the bleachers looked as theye they wanted to plant their cleats in my stomach.

It was awesome. I knew then and there that this team would be fine when it starts to matter again on Saturday and next week at the Big Ten Tournament.

"We've still got everything to play for," Gorman said. "We're not gonna throw the towel in yet."

"We just got to make sure we pick it up," Geordie MacNeil said. "It all comes down to Big Tens. We gotta step it up there."

If the fire I saw after a meaningless loss can find a way to hang around for a week or two, fans can be optimistic, because there is certainly an upside to anger.