14 I FRIDAY, OCT. 8, 2010 Field hockey begins trip By Joe Mclntyre COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER When the Penn State field hockey team plays in the friend ly confines of AstroTurf Field, it aiwa s has that little something extra the oppo- FIELD sition doesn't HOCKEY have. Some days there's the cowbell, some days there's the women's lacrosse team with their "take that ball away" chants and there's always the "We are, Penn State" cheer. But when the No. 16• Nittany Lions travel to No. 7 Michigan State for their first Big Ten road test, they won't have the luxury of having that home field advan tage. Conference matchups are always full of hostility from the players on the field, all the way up to the fans in the stands. Coach Char Morett said the only way for the Lions to gain an edge and put themselves back in a position to win is to start the game with an intensity level the Spartans aren't prepared for. - We have to come out on fire against them," Morett said. We just have to be very aggressive, ravish them in our defensive efforts. If we can do that I think we'll be in good shape and create some opportu Quiet Arment working hard By Andrew Robinson COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER Mackenzie Arment's mid length blonde hair stands out in stark contrast to his teammates' darker hair or cI - d ose-croppe cuts. Despite being SOCCER easy to spot on the field, junior midfielder's consistent play has gone under the radar this season. The way his teammates see it, they hope it stays that way. 'Kenz seems like a real quiet guy when he comes to the field but he's definitely dangerous," senior co-captain Andres Casais said. "I hope he stays quiet so people don't know about him, but he's very lethal." Over the last three games, Arment has been a key factor to the Penn State men's soccer team's offensive attack. The jun ior scored the game-winning goal in a tightly contested 4-3 win over St. Francis last Wednesday on a header off a cor ner. Arment set up the Lions' only goal in the team's 2-1 loss to Michigan on Sunday, drawing a foul inside the box to allow Corey Hertzog to net a penalty kick. Lady Ruggers reflect at half-way By Brandt Gelman COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER The Penn State Lady Ruggers find themselves in an unfamiliar situation this weekend for the first time in a month, the team will not be preparing for a match. "This week was an easy week for the team," coach Pete Steinberg said. "We didn't have practice on Monday or Tuesday because we wanted to give the team a chance to catch up on work and rest.- The break for the Lady Ruggers comes in the middle of the fall sea son, which will give the team an opportunity to be well-rested for the second half of the season. Steinberg has stated that the team is using the fall season as a tune up for the spring to make a run at a third consecutive national cham pionship. Three yards made all the difference for the Nittany Lions By Brendan Monahan THREE yards made the difference in perception. With three more yards, talk would have shifted from a 6-6 season to a 9-3 year. Granted, three more yards against lowa would n't have given the Nittany Lions the win, but three yards would have changed the flow of the game and the thoughts of the media and Penn State fanbase this week. Two yards kept Penn State from the end zone before halftime when the Lions took a field goal, and one yard separated them from a touchdown on the third quarter's opening drive. The Illinois game is now advertised as a close game, a must win some people have hit the panic button. The perception says Illinois could upset Penn State during homecoming, and "We have to come out on fire against them We just have to be very aggressive, ravish them in our defensive efforts." nities for us to score." After losing to Michigan on Sept. 26, the Lions have outscored their opponents 12-5, going 2-0 in the process with wins over Monmouth and con ference foe lowa. Penn State (8-3, 2-1 Big Thn) will look to be the first team to three wins in the conference and Morett attributes much of the recent success to an increase in confidence. And confidence is something redshirt sophomore Hannah Allison has definitely built up over the past week. The forward notched three goals in two games last weekend and said she expects the team to come out of East Lansing with a victory and a 3-1 conference record. "I think we just need to have motivation going into the week end knowing that it's going to be one of the physically toughest Big Ten games that we're going to play," Allison said. "But we know their style. We know there's a lot of foreigners so "I hope he stays quiet so people don't know about him, but he's very lethal." Against Villanova, Arment played a ball to Drew Cost, which turned into the only score in the team's win. MEN'S The junior's strong play is just a testament to his work ethic. "He's that guy that when you think he's out of the game, he goes and does something good for us," senior midfielder Matheus Braga said. "He works really hard, he works his [butt] off for 90 minutes in a game and he never gives up, that's why he gets his chances to score." This year, Arment has shown more durability after saying he got worn down at the end of the year a season ago. Last spring, the junior shifted into the central midfield after the Lions moved to a 5-3-2 formation, which forced him to add muscle and increase his stamina. Now back at the right wing role, Arment said he feels more comfortable with his position and he's putting more of an emphasis on eating right and playing with a high energy level. Casais praised Arment's field Steinberg has a laundry list of goals for the team throughout the entire fall season, and at the halfway point, the team has accomplished most of it. One of those goals is preparing the new Lady Ruggers for real game situations. The Lady Ruggers hold open tryouts every fall in an effort to increase the number of students involved with the rugby team. With a no-cut policy, Steinberg makes an effort to incorporate many of the new players into game-like situations. "We currently have 17 players that have just taken up rugby and we are really excited about their athleticism," Steinberg said. Steinberg has moved players in and out of the lineup during each of the Lady Ruggers' matches. He said he would rather have all of his players "game ready" than only MY OPINION Michigan's Denard Robinson will run straight through an underachieving and beaten up Penn State defensive line in three weeks. What if coaches called timeout with six seconds left in the second quarter last Saturday? Though risky, wouldn't it have enabled quarterback Rob Bolden to oper ate from the shotgun and fire to a receiver only inches from the end zone, increased the opportunity for a touchdown and maybe allowed for one or two more sec onds if there was a dropped ball? What if the Lions were able to pound the ball in for a score on the third quarter's opening drive? Three more yards would have meant two more touchdowns and a different tune sung this week, even if the Lions didn't win. The stories would have focused on a young but improving team. They would have spoke about a productive season with the chance of playing spoiler to better teams like Ohio State and Michigan down the road. SPORTS Char Morett Penn State field hockey coach we're just ready to play against them and I think the intensity's going to be there for 70 min utes." At this point last season, the Lions were 3-8 and had been shutout in four of the losses, scoring only one goal the other four times. But things are differ ent this season. The Nittany Lions have 31 goals through 11 games in 2010 compared to 14 in 11 last season. They haven't been dwelling on losses this season like they had the previous year, and sopho more forward and team scoring leader Kelsey Amy said over coming adversity is something the team has excelled at. "Things aren't always going to go your way when you're not in the home advantage," Amy said. "So we just need to mentally pre pare, know that the turf's going to be different, it's going to take a different bounce. Things might now always go our way, so we've just got to play through them." To e-mail reporter: jrms4ol@psu.edu Andres Casals senior co-captain presence, citing the foul he drew against Michigan. "On that play he held his com posure, he took two guys on in the box and fell down," Casais said. "He was hit so he went down, he didn't try to stay up and we got a really good PK out of it so cheers to him." Every time Arment touches the ball, Casais said the rest of the players have confidence the junior will do something positive with it. Braga, a left winger, said he's seen Arment play at a high level over the past two years and his counterpart on the right has been a key part of the Lions' potent offense. With Braga and Hertzog drawing national atten tion for their play, it's put even less focus on Arment. But the junior doesn't mind his work has gone relatively unheralded. "It's nice, these two, it's awe some they get all the attention, so teams focus in on them a lot," Arment said. "It allows me to kind of sneak in there." To e-mail reporter: adrso79@psu.edu focus on the upperclassmen. Steinberg has also been extremely impressed with the play of freshman Kelsey Corbett. Corbett is one of a few freshmen with prior rugby experience, and has been a boost to the team with her strong defensive play. Steinberg said Corbett has been strong enough to earn her a spot in the starting lineup for the spring season. In addition to that, Steinberg hoped to have his roster at full strength. The Lady Ruggers have seen a few of their best players go down with injuries during this season. Senior Deven Owsiany missed time with what she called a neck strain after colliding head-first with a teammate during practice. Junior Kelly Sager suffered a severe laceration above her right eye during the Lady Ruggers' Courtesy of ESPN com Lauren Purvis (left) and Jack Crawford in rendering for ESPN Magazine. Athletes in magazine In the spring months in Happy Valley, junior lacrosse captain Matt Mackrides is called upon to score goals. Four weeks ago, he was called upon to do something more outside of his comfort zone: model. A photography crew from ESPN came to Penn State in September to take pictures for a Student Body feature in ESPN The Magazine's annual Body Issue. But these were no ordinary pic tures. One athlete from each of Penn State's 29 varsity sports was pho tographed in 3-D. and the process was anything but ordinary. The purpose of ESPN The Magazine's "Student Body" is to deviate from the sports norm and display an athlete in all his or her glory in a completely stationary pose, as described on ESPN's web site. In the feature, one can com pare Lauren Purvis, a 5-foot-7 field hockey freshman, to Jack Crawford, a 6-foot-5 junior defen sive end, side-by-side. It aptly shows how an athlete's frame varies from sport to sport. "They had two stands up, and they kind of looked like projectors," Mackrides said. "I just stood in between them and rotated my body whenever they told me to. For Mackrides, the process took about 30 minutes, much longer than the typical split-second photo graph. However, ESPN told him at the end of the shoot that he actually took the shortest amount of time. "They said it took longer for other people because sometimes the technology didn't go through or the picture wasn't right," he said. It was a meticulous undertaking mark of their season match against Indiana. Both play ers were back on the field for last weekend's road match against West Chester University. which the Lady Ruggers won, 39-8. "Getting back on the field was an amazing feeling," Sager said. "This weekend I felt like I needed to prove that although I had gotten a little roughed up I was still able to play, and play well." With this weekend off, the Lady Ruggers' next opponent is Delaware next weekend. Steinberg said he will have the entire team at his disposal during the match. When they are healthy, the Lady Ruggers know they can score the ball. In its three official matches this season, the team has scored 46, 59 and 39 points. Steinberg said the team has made tackling a focal point. Corbett is one player that has Some would say I use the words - would' and "if" too much. Reality speaks. Penn State spiked the ball and allowed three more seconds to slip off the clock, then kicked the field goal. lowa's Jeremiha Hunter and Christian Ballard stopped Bolden inches from the goal line. The Lions only earned three points instead of 14 on those two sequences. "lowa did everything they needed to do, and they stopped us when they needed to stop us," Penn State fullback Joe Suhey said. "Yeah, if we would have made those plays, the game could have been different, but we didn't." One concrete fact is this the Lions have question marks, ones that have sur faced in more than one game. Bolden has been pressured. The running game hasn't been too productive. The team, most notably the defense, has started slow in games. If these questions aren't answered, it could be a long year. By Dan Norton FOR THE COLLEGIAN Yes, Alabama and lowa are great teams, but Penn State has competed with both of them in the second half. The Lions weren't good enough to beat either the Crimson Tide or Hawkeyes, nor would Penn State have necessarily defeated them if several plays went the Lions' way, but Penn State wasn't as far off as the 24-3 scores por trayed. Illinois can beat Penn State, especially if the same problems hinder the Lions. But on homecoming in Beaver Stadium a week after a demoralizing loss, those signs alone say Penn State will more than likely win. In reality, the Lions are better than they've appeared. "I think we were like two plays away from making [lowa] a different game," defensive end Eric Latimore said. "Not that far off from where we need to be." They're really only a few yards away. Brendan Monahan is a senior majoring in English and is Collegian footballn writer. His e-mail address is: bjmsl46@psu.edu THE DAILY COLLEGIAN for the photographers. Using both cameras, they took multiple shots of each athlete and then pieced each of those shots together to form the three-dimensional result. For junior swimmer Brian Alden, it all took about an hour. He had the opportunity to talk to the coordina tor of the project. He was showed examples from last year and the kind of stuff that would be going in the magazine, Alden said. Mackrides and Alden didn't know any of the project's details when they were prompted to participate. Nonetheless, the answer was an easy one. [My coach] asked me if I wanted to participate in it, and I didn't want to turn down an opportunity to be in ESPN The Magazine," Mackrides said. - That's a cool thing to say you've done." A cool thing, he said, but also - strange." Mackrides had to wear compres sion shorts at the shoot so they could accurately get his body mold. He said it was weird to have multi ple people photographing him for a half-hour while he wore them. Although Alden's ideal environ ment involves chlorinated water, he said he wasn't nervous or uncom fortable at the photo shoot despite his lack of experience. - I just thought it was something that was going to be pretty cool to do," he said. Neither Mackrides nor Alden have seen - Student Body" yet, as it was published very recently, but both are eager to check themselves out in one of the country's most popular sports magazines. - Au college athlete likes to be associated with ESPN," Mackrides said. "I'm excited to see what it's going to look like." really stepped up to make strong defense a priority The coaches have had me working on wrapping up," Corbett said. - I really think the team has improved defensively already this season.- In their match against Indiana, Penn State held Hoosiers flyhalf Tyra McGrady, a two time All- American, to just two trys. Last weekend against an aggressive West Chester team, the Lady Ruggers held the entire team to one try Steinberg said he still sees room for improvement with the team's defensive play. "It is important that when a tackle happens, the support defender tries to take the ball from the ball carrier," Steinberg said. '•We are working on that and other ways to create more turnovers." To e-mail reporter: bmgso94@psu.edu
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers