Sitting at 299 career wins, Glenn Thiel is on the verge of a milestone, but one wouldn't know it by talking with him.

With his 300th career win in sight, the Penn State men's lacrosse coach is instead focused on his team playing Massachusetts at noon tomorrow on Bigler Field.

Thiel was quick to brush off the accomplishment, joking that one should also look at "the other side of the ledger" in reference to his 201 career losses.

"No, I never think about that," Thiel said with a laugh. "It's nice. We'll worry about it after we've done it and after it has happened -- that could be weeks away."

Instead, Thiel is solely focused the Nittany Lions (4-3, 1-1 ECAC) and their opportunity to move over .500 in conference games. Penn State can also extend its season-long winning streak to four games with a win over the Minutemen.

Massachusetts comes to Happy Valley on a three-game losing streak. Both the Lions and the Minutemen have endured periods of domination by opposing teams and both look to play a defensive game with an emphasis on faceoffs and groundball possession.

"They kind of remind me of ourselves. They have a lot of tough players -- not really flashy," Penn State junior goalkeeper Drew Adams said.

Like Penn State, one of Massachusetts' leaders is its goalie: junior Doc Schneider. He led the Minutemen to the NCAA final as a freshman in 2006 and has made 79 saves this season for a 60.3 percent save percentage.

With last week's blowout to the Greyhounds fresh in their minds, Thiel said the Minutemen will be fired up -- and Penn State co-captain Tommy Zichelli said his team's going to have to match that intensity.

"We got to have the type of practices we had last week," Zichelli said. "It's UMass so we're going to be excited."

Penn State continues to stress the importance of the ECAC games, as the conference winner gets an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament in May.

Thiel said conference games are much more intense than non-conference games because of the familiarity the ECAC teams have with each other. And with No. 5 Georgetown and Loyola undefeated in conference play, a second loss would severely damage title hopes.

"It'll be close," Thiel said, "if we play the way we're capable of playing. Hopefully, we'll play like we did Friday night and pull out a victory. That's the only way we can play, that's the only way we can win."