BALTIMORE – Loyola held Penn State to two second half goals and only one shot in the fourth quarter, defeating the Nittany Lions, 7-4, in the teams' ECAC Lacrosse Conference opener in front of 745 wind-blown fans at Diane Geppi Aikens Field on Saturday afternoon.

"We played solid on defense, and we came up with some big stops when we needed them," Loyola Head Coach Charley Toomey said. "We did not play very well on offense, and I was disappointed with our performance in the midfield, but I thought that we were good at the (faceoff) ‘X,' and we did what we needed to on defense."

The Greyhounds (2-1 overall, 1-0 ECAC), who are ranked 15th in the nation, took a 3-2 halftime lead as Jake Wilcox scored the only goal of the second quarter with 6:51 remainig before the break. He took a feed from Chris Basler and beat Penn State goalie Drew Adams.

The Nittany Lions (1-2, 0-1), however, evened the game less than four minutes into the second half. Rob Forster found Chris Hogan in front of the goal, and Hogan knotted the game at 3-3 with 11:41 left in the third quarter.

After several minutes of scoreless play, Shane Koppens put Loyola ahead for good with an unassisted tally 6:25 before the end of the third quarter.

Koppens' goal started a 4-0 Loyola run, as Matt Langan and Cooper MacDonnell each scored to give the Greyhounds a 6-3 advantage heading into the final quarter.

Joe Landry dodged right and beat Adams for Loyola's final goal with 4:28 remaining in the game.

Forster scored, unassisted, with eight seconds for Penn State to provide the final margin.

Loyola outshot Penn State, 31-19, but the Greyhounds had an 18-8 advantage in shots after halftime. Adams made 15 saves for Penn State, but Jake Hagelin had seven stops in goal for the Greyhounds.

The Greyhounds got on the board first, as MacDonnell took a Koppens pass and put it into the cage 1:03 into the contest.

Chris Mulqueen's goal with 11:57 to go in the first quarter evened the game, and Matt Loy gave Penn State it's only lead of the game with 8:38 left in the first quarter on an extra-man goal.

Loyola tied the score at 2-2 with 28 ticks left in the first quarter as Koppens fed Basler for an extra-man goal.

The Greyhounds had 33 ground balls in the game, led by P.T. Ricci's game-high 10. Paul Richards picked up seven ground balls. Ricci led all players with eight caused turnovers.

Loyola won nine of 15 faceoffs in the game. Tim McDermott was 7-of-12 at the faceoff ‘X,' and John Schiavone and Michael Atkinson each won one.

The Greyhounds return to Diane Geppi-Aikens Field for a non-conference match-up on Saturday, March 8, 2008, against second-ranked Duke. Game time is slated for 2:00 p.m.

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BALTIMORE, Md., March 1, 2008 – The Penn State Nittany Lion lacrosse team battled No. 15 Loyola evenly but dropped a hard-fought 7-4 decision in ECAC Lacrosse League opener for both teams. Played in Baltimore in front of a MASN-TV audience, Penn State could not come back from a brief but hot Greyhound burst in the game's third quarter.

The Nittany Lions and Greyhounds were tied 3-3 with just seven minutes to play in the third quarter, but four straight Loyola goals were too much for Penn State to overcome and the Greyhounds escaped with the conference win.

The two teams relied on stellar defense throughout the game, with each team netting two first period goals and Loyola scoring the lone goal in the second quarter. The Greyhounds got out in front early with a Cooper MacDonnell goal at the 13:57 mark. But Penn State answered right back as Chris Mulqueen (Downingtown, Pa.) scored an unassisted goal exactly two minutes later.

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2008-03-01