St. John’s Travels To Penn State On Saturday For ECAC Road Contest
St. John’s lacrosse looking for its second conference win.
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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (April 10, 2009) – St. John’s lacrosse visits State College, Pa., on Saturday for its second-straight ECAC road contest. The Red Storm will collide with the Penn State Nittany Lions at 1 p.m. on Jeffrey Field. Both teams are looking for their second league win.

Fans can follow the action from Jeffrey with live stats available via GameTracker on www.RedStormSports.com or www.gopsusports.com.
St. John’s (5-4, 1-3 ECAC) continues on its two-game away swing after traveling to Amherst, Mass., on April 4. The Red Storm lost 12-6 to the then-No. 14 Minutemen as UMass starting goaltender Doc Schneider allowed just two goals in his 54 minutes of play. Freshman Carl Iacona scored three goals in the last three minutes of play. Penn State (5-5, 1-3) will be riding the coattails of a 9-8 upset over No. 19 on Tuesday. Senior goalkeeper Drew Adams led the team with 20 saves, facing 28 on goal.
Both teams have one win in the conference. St. John’s notched a league win 10-9, over then No. 5 Georgetown on Feb. 28; while Penn State tallied its lone conference win, 10-8, over Hobart on April 4.
Saturday’s game will be St. John’s second-consecutive contest against a top-tier goalkeeper. Adams is the league’s three-time Goalie of the Year.

The Series Against Penn State
Saturday’s meeting is only the fifth-ever between the Penn State Nittany Lions and the St. John’s Red Storm. PSU leads the series 3-1 as the teams have only met in the league-play since 2005. St. John’s notched its first win in the series last season, 11-7, on DaSilva Memorial Field in the Red Storm’s first-ever televised game.
Penn State is 2-0 hosting St. John’s on Jeffrey Field.
On April 12, 2008, St. John’s got its first win of the season against Penn State as then-senior Justin O’Donnell led the Red Storm with six points off two goals and four assists, while classmate Rob Gannon led the team in goals with a hat trick. With the game tied four-times in the first-half, Trevor Michaelsen scored the eventual game-winning goal, man-up, with 5:22 left in the second period to put St. John’s up 6-5. PSU came within two goals with 12:12 left in regulation, but goals by Malcolm Miles and Rob Gannon sealed the deal on the Red Storm victory.
When the teams last met in State College, Pa., on April 14, 2007, the Nittany Lions defeated the Red Storm 9-5. PSU took a three-goal lead in the first period before St. John’s scored two in the second. A last second goal in the second period by then-sophomore Matt Viscusi ended the scoring at the half 4-3 in favor of PSU. Penn State led 7-5 going into the final period, but the Red Storm could only get off four shots and fell short 9-5.

Scouting The Nittany Lions
Penn State (5-5, 1-3 ECAC) is coming off two big wins against Hobart (April 4) and at No. 19 Bucknell (April 7). The Nittany Lions are led in scoring by rookie Jack Forster who has tallied 28 points on 16 goals and 12 assists on the season. Forster is a two-time ECAC Rookie of the Week honoree. His older brother Rob Forster is second on the team in points with 23 (17G, 6A). Against Bucknell on April 7, the older Forster scored the only two goals of the fourth period to help the Nittany Lions come back from a one-goal deficit. Chris Hogan is No. 1 in goals with 20.
The real leader on the Nittany Lions is three-time ECAC Goalie of the Year, Drew Adams. Adams has tallied 44 saves in four days. He led the team in the 9-8 upset over No. 19 Bucknell with 20 saves, three days after his 24-save performance in PSU’s 10-8 victory over Hobart on April 4. On the season, Adams has notched 151 saves, with a save percentage of .651. Against Hobart, Adams also picked up nine ground balls.
Head coach Glenn Theil is in his 32nd season at the helm of the Nittany Lions with a 229-175 record. Overall, Theil is 306-211 and is second on the list of career wins among active Division I coaches. His resume includes two national titles with the Virginia Cavaliers.
Penn State has had a lot of close calls this season, with four of its five losses in one-goal decisions, two in overtime. The Nittany Lions has lost games in OT to Robert Morris and Fairfield and one-goal losses to Loyola and UMass.
The Nittany Lions are receiving votes in both polls.

Last Time Out
Freshman Carl Iacona came away with four points in the Red Storm’s 12-6 loss to Massachusetts on April 4. Iacona netted three goals in the last four minutes of play to lead St. John’s in scoring.
The Minutemen jumped out to an 8-1 lead in the first half. In the third period, both teams scored only a goal each as senior Malcolm Miles netted the only goal for the Red Storm in the quarter.
Senior Dom DeNapoli won the battle at the face-off X, winning 11 of 20 draws.

In The Red Zone
Senior Drew Schanen leads St. John’s in points with 22 points on 18 goals and four assists. The North Brunswick, N.J., native’s goal-tally is also a team-best. Senior Trevor Michaelsen and rookie Harry Kutner are tied for second with 19 points. Michaelsen has 14 goals and five assists, while Kutner has 11 goals with eight assists.
Kutner and senior Malcolm Miles are tied for the team’s assist leader with four each. Miles has notched an assist in the last three games for the Red Storm, with a career-best four against Georgetown on Feb. 28.
Face-off specialist and LSM, senior Dom DeNapoli leads the team in ground balls with 89. Sophomore close-defender Mike Sherry is second on the team in GB’s with 25. Rookie midfielder Carl Iacona is close behind with 21.
Sherry leads the team in caused turnovers with 15, while DeNapoli is second with 14.

StormTracker Stat Of The Week
2-2: St. John’s is 2-2 on the road in 2009, with a 10-5 victory at Holy Cross on Feb. 14 and an 8-7 come-from-behind win at Siena on March 17. The two road victories are the most since 2006 when the Red Storm defeated Air Force and Lafayette on their home fields. A win at Penn State will give STJ its best road record since the program was reinstated in 2005.

Season Check Point – Around The ECAC
Undefeated in league play, UMass is first in the ECAC at 3-0 and an overall record of 6-3. Fairfield and Loyola are tied for second with records of 3-1. St. John’s, Penn State and Hobart all share a 1-3 record, while Rutgers (2-2) and Georgetown (1-2) are in between.
With no conference play-off, head-to-head results will determine the ECAC’s automatic qualifier. A three-way tie will be determined by record comparison, competition among common opponents and national RPI.
St. John’s is tied for second in the league in man-up goals per game (1.33) and man-down goals (.11) and caused turnovers (9.00).

On Deck
St. John’s will play two games in three days as the Red Storm hosts the Hobart Statesmen on Friday, April 17 at 3 p.m., then travels to Notre Dame, Ind. on Sunday for a 1 p.m. contest against the University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

–  Red Storm  –