Turnovers, failed clears cost Navy
Annapolis native Jack Fracyon makes 15 saves for the Nittany Lions
Penn State men’s lacrosse is way too potent offensively to be given extra possessions.
Navy was way too generous with the giveaways Saturday, and the visitors capitalized time and time again.
Attackman Will Peden scored four goals, while midfielder Matt Traynor totaled three goals and two assists as No. 13 Penn State steadily pulled away to beat Navy, 13-3, in front of an announced 2,553 at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.
Peden and Traynor, who are both juniors, played together at Malvern Prep.
Goalie Jack Fracyon, a returning All-American from Annapolis, recorded 10 saves to repeatedly frustrate the Navy offense. The Bullis School graduate set the tone by making 10 stops in the first half.
“Jack played really well all week in practice. I thought this week he was uber focused. This game meant a lot to him,” Penn State coach Jeff Tambroni said. “Coming back home and playing a couple miles from where he grew up, I thought Jack was locked in all game. I thought the defense gained a ton of confidence because of his ability to make big saves.”
The Midshipmen were 16-for-21 clearing the ball and committed 19 turnovers. Navy coach Joe Amplo cited those two statistics as turning the tide of the game.
“We gave them opportunities that they capitalized on. The failed clears in the first quarter and third quarter absolutely killed us. Then we started throwing the ball away on offense,” Amplo said. “We had five failed clears and they probably got three goals off of them.”
Peden scored twice, while Traynor had a goal and an assist as Penn
State jumped out to a 4-0 lead after one quarter. However, Navy settled in on both ends of the field in the second and only trailed 5-2 at halftime.
Freshman Zach Hayashi won the opening faceoff of the second half and the Mids moved the ball into the offensive zone quickly. Short-stick defensive midfielder Jackson Peters scored from 5 yards in front of the goal and that cut the deficit to 5-3 with just 10 seconds elapsed.
Navy got a defensive stop on the other end and was unable to clear the ball as midfielder Keegan Houser dropped a short pass then struggled to pick up the ground ball, leading to a time violation.
The Midshipmen caused a turnover on the ensuing possession and failed to clear the ball again as a defenseman Ian McGullum got the ball checked out of his stick. That turnover inside the Navy box led directly to a fastbreak goal with attackman TJ Malone feeding Traynor for a one-on-one shot.
“Starting the second half with that goal by Jackson, you would think that gives us some life,” Amplo said. “Then we have two failed clears in a row. We played defense for five minutes.”
Bonitz acknowledged the difficulty of playing stout defense for an entire possession then having an immediate turnover and having to do so again.
“A lot of our huddles after they scored was not talking about defense, but saying we’ve got to clear the ball,” he said. “It felt like we were playing solid defense for a while. It’s tough to get back and reset knowing they get another 80 seconds on the shot clock.”
The Midshipmen became sloppier on offense as the second half wore on with several players simply throwing the ball away with poor passes. Most of the 19 turnovers were unforced.
“Offensively, I have to imagine when those things happen it deflates you. It makes you play a little tighter,” Amplo said.
Penn State was outstanding on defense with sophomores Will Costin and Alex Ross (Spalding) combining for five caused turnovers. Long-stick midfielder Sam Sweeney, an Edgewater native, had two ground balls for the Nittany Lions.
While Amplo was inclined to credit the Penn State defense for holding Navy to three goals, senior attackman Xavier Arline said the offensive players need to accept some responsibility.
“Three goals is unacceptable. We’re college lacrosse players. I don’t care if they won the national championship last year. We’ve got to be better,” said Arline, who thought the Midshipmen made things harder than they should have been with poor positioning and lack of movement.
“I think we were a little disorganized. We have to do a better job of putting guys in the right spots to be successful. That’s beyond coaching. It’s us on the field. Guys have got to be set up and moving off-ball. A lot of teams are getting easy one-more goals and we don’t get a lot of those because we’re unorganized.”
Navy has been outscored 30-8 over the past two games after starting the season by beating two opponents by a combined score of 35-14. Amplo was upset about the effort the Mids put forth in last Saturday’s 17-5 loss to Towson but did not feel that was an issue Saturday.
“I’m proud of our guys for how hard they played. Different from last week,” he said.
Penn St. (3-1) 4-1-3-5— 13
Navy (2-2) 0-2-1-0— 3
GOALS: PS — Peden 4, Traynor 3, Long 2, Malone, Costin, Morin, Walstrum. N — Flaherty, Peters, Hewitt. ASSISTS: PS — Malone 2, Traynor 2, Costin, Long, Mercer, Morin. N — Arline, Hayashi. SHOTS: PS—45.N—35. SAVES: PS— Fracyon 15. N — Daly 14. FACEOFFS: PS—9.N — 11. GROUND BALLS: PS—31.N—41.