When the season first started, the Penn State men's soccer team looked at its schedule and hoped to play more than 20 games this season.
With the regular season lasting 18 games, the Nittany Lions envisioned at least 21 games being played and at least one trophy to be placed on their mantle.
Due to injuries and a slow start, the Lions (7-11-2, 4-4 Big Ten) saw the season slip away and end in a second round defeat in the Big Ten Tournament against eventual Big Ten champs Indiana.
To see where things went wrong, the Lions and their faithful have to look back to the Ohio State Classic and the Carolina Classic where the team started off the season 1-3.
Coming into the season ranked No. 5 in the country, the Lions lost to ranked teams such as Wake Forest and North Carolina, but Penn State head coach Barry Gorman felt his team could only get better.
"We have played well, but we need to put together a whole 90 minutes," Gorman said after his team's poor start. "It was a disappointing start, but we have a lot of time to fix it."
Equipped with two All-Big Ten forwards in senior Simon Omekanda and sophomore Jason Yeisley, the Lions were a sure bet to put up goals against teams and stay competitive.
Starting the season 1-3 is something that isn't new to this squad. Last year after an 0-4-1 start, the Lions pulled together and ended up winning the Big Ten title.
This season the Lions followed that start, serving as host to the Penn State Classic and left that weekend with a loss to San Francisco and a 1-1 tie with Boston University.
During the Boston game, the Lions scored their first goal in four games and saw that as the spark that should have ignited the season.
"It was great to see us get the monkey off of our back," Gorman said of the goal. "Goals solve a lot of issues."
The following game saw a three-goal outburst as the Lions beat Michigan State.
But they left the game without one of their star players, Yeisley, who would suffer a season ending knee injury.
With Yeisley injured, the Lions inserted freshman Jacobo Vera whose size and skills kept the team competitive.
After a 2-1 loss to Maryland, Big Ten play continued and the Lions kept up their dominance over conference foes with a win against Northwestern.
In the game, captain Markku Viitanen returned to the field for the first time all season and the Lions finally seemed to have a set lineup.
"We put a lot of players out there to see what works," Gorman said. "We get a lot of effort out of these guys every game."
In the next five games, the Lions went 1-3-1 and saw a season-ending injury to Vera and other players miss one or two games along the way their chances to win.
One of the lone highlights of the disappointing campaign was the 1-0 victory over Indiana on national television.
The game seemed to give the Lions some hope for the Big Ten tournament and maybe even the NCAA tournament.
"It's a great confidence booster for the guys," head coach Barry Gorman said. "[They had] an extra buzz. They got off to a great start. Credit to the guys that were playing."
The Lions though did not seem to feed off the momentum from the game and lost their final two games of the season to Lehigh and Michigan.
After the first round win against Northwestern in the Big Ten tournament, Penn State would go on to lose 1-0 to Indiana and all hopes for a NCAA tournament bid was lost.
But throughout the season, Gorman always gave credit to his players when it was due and through all of the injuries and disappointments, he always has next season.
The Lions are only graduating four seniors and will have full squad with experience next year.
Gorman hopes that his young players look to the Indiana win earlier in the season as a glimmer of hope for next year.
"There's nothing that breeds confidence more than winning," Gorman said. "You have to get those wins under your belt."
