When the Penn State men's lacrosse team jumped out to a four-goal lead in its 7-4 win last Tuesday against Colgate University, it couldn't have felt too comfortable.

The Nittany Lions also had a 4-0 lead in their game against Loyola two weeks ago. Loyola fought back, scoring seven goals in the fourth quarter for a 10-9 win.

The Lions also built up a 4-0 lead over Ohio State back on March 10. By the second half, the Buckeyes had pushed past the Lions, and ended up with a 10-8 win.

Penn State sophomore defenseman John Stuckey calls this the "snowball effect" -- the opposing offense scores a goal or two, and starts to pick up energy. By the time they've stopped rolling, they've tacked on several more.

"When you're in a lacrosse game, things can get out of hand," Stuckey said. "Two goals can quickly become five or six goals."

However, the snowball effect didn't hold the Lions back on Tuesday, as they picked up their first win of the season over Colgate. The game was played at a neutral location at Georgetown Preparatory School in North Bethesda, Md.

In the second quarter, the Lions' 4-0 lead slowly began to shrink. Colgate's Brandon Corp scored two goals in less than two minutes, and the "snowball" gained more steam when the Raiders tacked on another goal, cutting Penn State's lead to 4-3 at halftime.

However, Lion freshman midfielder Brian Shea opened the second half by putting up his third goal of the game. Colgate's "snowball" had reached the bottom of the hill.

"It was just a big win for us," Shea said when asked about his performance. "I was trying to help the team win a big game."

After last Saturday's loss to Ohio State, the Lions were 0-4 to start the season, their longest season-opening losing streak since 1966, when they started 0-6 under head coach Dick Pencek. During head coach Glenn Thiel's 29 seasons as head coach, the team has started out 0-3 twice; once in 1985, when it finished 3-10, and again in 1993, when it finished with a 6-5 record and a No. 19 ranking.

"You can't lie -- the morale was bad," Stuckey said of the team after its loss to Ohio State. "I mean, everyone sticks together. There's never
a question of somebody blowing up
or somebody getting on another
person's case ... We were kind of at a loss for words at that point."

Stuckey added that winning Tuesday's game felt like a weight being lifted off the team's shoulders. Since the beginning of the season, players have said their goal was to play in the national championship tournament, and Stuckey indicated that their attitude hasn't changed.

"0-4 is a hard place to start," he said. "Right now, it's just one game at a time. We're gonna try to win our league. If that happens, we're gonna hope for the tournament."

Notes

Penn State was scheduled to play at Stony Brook (2-1) on Saturday at 1 p.m., but the game was postponed because of snow. No makeup date has been set.