EAST HARTFORD, Conn. — It’s one of the understood facets of the NCAA tournament that few really like to talk about loudly: The quarterfinal weekend, especially for those playing on it for the first time, that is especially daunting.
A place in the semifinals is an accomplishment on it own. A title game will long be remembered, win or lose. But the perception of how a season is viewed can change with a poor game in the middle weekend of the postseason. It leads to some tightly gripped sticks and added nerves.
Don’t bother positing that theory to Penn State. The top-seeded Nittany Lions did Sunday what they have all season: Score and score and score some more, en route to a 21-14 defeat of Loyola at Rentschler Field.
Mac O’Keefe matched an NCAA tournament record with nine goals and Grant Ament had a goal and eight assists for Penn State (16-1), which added to its season of firsts. It already had its first Big Ten title, its first Big Ten tournament crown, its first No. 1 seed and its first victory in the NCAA tournament.
And now, coach Jeff Tambroni’s program will play on Memorial Day weekend for the first time.
“They continue to believe in each other and they continue to play extremely relaxed,” said Tambroni, who previously led Cornell to the final days of the season. “More than anything, they just continue to seem to have fun competing and playing for one another. Having gone through this myself, I’m not sure these guys realize what they’re doing right now.”
It’s fair to say they know they’re piling up goals at an absurd clip. Coupled with a 25-10 drubbing of UMBC in the first round, Penn State joined 1990 Syracuse as the only teams in tournament history to drop 20 goals on back-to-back opponents.
The eighth-seeded Greyhounds (12-5) got a career-best six goals plus five assists from Tewaaraton finalist Pat Spencer in his final college game. But for as many answers as the brilliant attackman offered up, Penn State collectively had more.
“We had our hands full today,” Loyola coach Charley Toomey said. “We knew that. We watched enough film of them. We felt like we had a good idea of what they were going to do. Everybody told me when you think you have an idea, it’s a different animal when you see it live. Quite honestly, it was. They move the ball. They share it. They have unbelievable shooters.”
And give those shooters seemingly unlimited possession, and a cushion is sure to ensue. Loyola impressed while darting to a 6-3 lead, but Penn State started to monopolize faceoffs and control the middle of the field.
By the time halftime arrived, the Nittany Lions were up 14-7 and had dropped nine goals in the second quarter --- matching the quarterfinal record for goals in a quarter.
“We knew if we could scrap off the ground, it would make a huge difference getting those second and third possessions,” Ament said. “Very similarly in the middle of the field, all the faceoff guys battling for the ball and getting every possession that we can. That was kind of the key. Once we started getting it rolling in the second quarter and playing a lot harder, the ball seemed to kind of roll our way.”
The presence of the Ament/O’Keefe pairing helped, too. Ament has pushed his Division I single-season assists record to 91, while O’Keefe is up to 75 goals on the season. Ament has assisted on 32 of those, including six on Sunday as the Greyhounds left both space to operate while keeping tabs on the rest of the exceptional Penn State offense.
“I think that was because they had to worry about a lot of our other guys,” O’Keefe said. “We have a lot of depth throughout the field. We have our middies Jack Kelly, Nick Spillane and all the other guys, so it opens up a lot of space for me. It allowed me to sort of flash, and he’s going to find me so we had a lot of success with that.”
Still, Spencer had a flourish in him, choosing not to go quietly in the quarterfinals of his senior season. Loyola trailed 16-9 in the third quarter, but Spencer scored four times during the Greyhounds’ five-goal run to close within two.
However, a nonreleaseable two-minute penalty for an illegal body check slowed the Loyola offense, and it would get only six shots off in the fourth quarter as the Nittany Lions pulled away. Spencer closed his career with 231 assists, a Division I record, and 380 points. The latter total ranks second on the career list behind former Albany star Lyle Thompson.
“I’ve been surrounded by great people, great coaches for four years and it sucks that it ends like this,” Spencer said. “I’m just grateful for all the support from everybody. I had a blast. It’s kind of surreal right now that it’s over, but thankful for all the people who have been a part of this for me and pushed me and made me better.”
While Spencer and goalie Jacob Stover (19 saves) end their heralded careers, Penn State moves on to a new stage for the program. Then again, this weekend was a different spot for the Nittany Lions as well, and they handled it with aplomb.
“This is kind of what we’ve put the blood, sweat and tears into,” defenseman Chris Sabia said. “For this to kind of start coming true, it’s a dream come true for all of us.”
It’s what Penn State had in mind when it lured Tambroni away from Cornell after a decade-long run with the Big Red. It featured eight NCAA tournament trips and three appearances in the final four, coming ever-so-close to a Memorial Day victory lap in 2009.
He took over a program with just two NCAA appearances to its credit and a questionable commitment to the sport. The Nittany Lions would tack on just two more postseason trips in the next eight years, and it was fair to wonder if Penn State would ever figure it out.
This entire season — and Sunday especially — has provided a firm answer to those questions.
“The belief has just never wavered and the patience,” Tambroni said. “I give [athletic director] Sandy [Barbour] a lot of credit. We have not been knocking the ball out of the park for nine straight years. We’ve had our moments. We have built a phenomenal alumni base and I would say we have gone through so much together as an institution. Our administration has never stopped believing. Our alumni have never stopped believing. Our families have never stopped believing. To do this in Philadelphia just makes it all the sweeter.”
Ah, yes. A final four trip in Baltimore or Foxborough would have been sweet enough. Penn State, which has mined the Philadelphia area for Ament, Sabia and other key pieces, won’t have to ask its fanbase to travel far to celebrate a program milestone next weekend.
Next stop: Lincoln Financial Field. Well, maybe two stops from now.
“I just joked around with coach that we might need to make a cheesesteak run next week with the guys,” Ament said.
Yup, there’s no nerves with this group, and the tournament’s top-seeded team remains as hungry as ever — in more ways than one.