Penn State aims to turn the tables on Yale

For the No. 1 team in the country it was the lone blemish on an otherwise flawless season.

Penn State, marching into this weekend’s Final Four in Philadelphia, has been dominant throughout the lacrosse season. The Nittany Lions rank No. 1 in seven statistical categories, including scoring offense

(18.00) and scoring margin

(7.53).

Yet there was one hiccup on the season and it came in New Haven. Penn State

(16-1) suffered its only defeat on Feb. 23, a 14-13 loss to defending national champion Yale.

Fast forward three months and the programs will meet again, this time in the national semifinals. Yale, bidding for its second title in a row, will face Penn State at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field.

What did the Nittany Lions cull from their defeat? Plenty.

“It was one of the best learning experiences for our program that we could have had all year,” Penn State coach Jeff Tambroni said on a national media conference call Tuesday. “It was one of those moments where we felt like we belonged … we’ve got a lot of respect for what (Yale does) in terms of how they go about their coaching and how they play, but we also felt like we belonged on that field.”

Yale led 11-8 heading into the fourth quarter on that Saturday in New Haven, but Penn State made a late charge. The Nittany Lions scored five of the last six goals, falling just short.

“Having played them

already is a big factor,” Yale coach Andy Shay said. “It’s huge. You watch them on film and they’re so dazzling and so fast and so impressive, but there’s really nothing like first hand knowledge of what happens. But so we’re clear, they’re dazzling and impressive in person as well.”

Penn State is coming off a

21-14 win over Loyola in the NCAA quarterfinals at Rentschler Field. Mac O’Keefe and Grant Ament each delivered nine-point games, with O’Keefe tying the single-game tournament record of nine goals.

O’Keefe has 75 goals, inching closer to the all-time Division I record of 82 (Yale’s Jon Reese in 1990, Albany’s Miles Thompson in 2014). Penn State has 306 goals, closing in on the alltime team record of 325 (Albany, 2015).

The dazzling numbers add up to the most impressive team in the country. Penn State is in the Final Four for the first time in school history, the culmination of a steady rise under Tambroni.

Tambroni was 109-40 in

10 years at Cornell. He led Cornell to at least a share of eight Ivy League titles and to eight NCAA Tournament appearances, including three trips to the Final Four.

He was lured to Penn State in 2010. The Nittany Lions were 7-7 and 9-6 in his first two seasons before breaking through with a

12-win season and an NCAA appearance in 2013.

“It has been a process,” Tambroni said. “It certainly didn’t happen overnight. It was the evolution of a lot of a lot of time and a lot of effort.”

Tambroni, who grew up near Syracuse and played at Hobart, had keep roots in Central New York. It was somewhat of a leap of faith that led him to leave an Ivy League power for a program coming off a 2-11 season in 2010.

“Try to mimic a lot of what we learned at Cornell and bring it here,” Tambroni said. “With our infrastructure ... we believed, truly believed that as long as we took small steps and did it the right way and built culture first and then team second that we would have the chance to someday be in this conversation.”

And indeed, Tambroni has the program on the national stage. With the Final Four in Philadelphia, expect a large contingent of Penn State supporters on hand Saturday.

Tambroni and his staff will stress to their players that the team is there to compete, not observe. But he’s not worried about how his players will manage the pressure of playing under a microscope.

After all, the Nittany Lions responded to their only loss three months ago by reeling off 13 wins in a row. They beat Cornell and Penn immediately after losing in New Haven, and they marched through the Big Ten.

Now they have an opportunity to avenge their only loss.