A Bump in the Road for Pickin' Nits

When you're up high for so long, it takes some time getting used to coming back down every so often. It's not Penn State as a whole had a bad weekend because there were positives to take way as well.

The ubiquitous addition of men's and women's hockey to the schedules will give everyone in State College another reason to root on The Pennsylvania State University in full force.

Next week will be better, guys!

Cross Country

The men took first place in the Penn State National this past weekend. Duquesne finished in second and Temple ended up in third. Penn State's top five finishes were from sophomores and freshmen. Sophomore Brannon Kidder finished with a 26:46 time to lead the Nittany Lions.

Temple's Junior Alex Izewski led all runners with a 26:20 time.

The women finished second behind Duquesne led by senior Lauren Mills. Mills finished eighth with a time of 22:40.

Duquesne had five runners finish in the top 10 including sophomore Valerie Palermo's best time on the women's side finishing at 21:40.

This Week Ahead: It's the greatest season of the year in cross country now: postseason. Both teams will head to Terre Haute, Ind. for the Pre-National Invitational on Saturday in preparation before the Big Ten Championships in November.

Field Hockey

This Top 5 matchup lived up to the hype, just not in Penn State's favor. No. 4 Penn State fell to No. 2 Maryland 4-3 in College Park after a late rally fell just short.

Penn State scored two goals in the final three minutes before dropping their record to 10-3 on the year.

Seniors Taylor Herald, Jenna Chrismer and Amanda Dinunzio each had a goal on the afternoon and redshirt senior Kylie Licata had four saves.

Freshman Lein Holsboer led the Terrapins with two goals.

This Week Ahead: It's a busy stretch of home games for Penn State this week with three games in Happy Valley. The schedule will feature Bucknell on Tuesday, Rutgers on Friday and Iowa on Sunday.

Soccer

After climbing the polls all the way to No. 3 in the country, Penn State dropped their first match of the season in a 4-0 defeat from Maryland. Maryland must have wanted to whoop the living shit out of Penn State for some time. Rivalry? I'm not starting this.

Anyways, junior midfielder Mael Corboz, who ironically enough transferred from #CHOPnation, had two goals and had Penn State in their first minutes trailing in a match all year.

People who attend both Rutgers and Maryland in their collegiate careers should be put in the same quarantine Ebola patients are treated in. I have all the respect in the world for Gary Williams and Juan Dixon, but it still burns deep down they're in the Big Ten.

Speaking of Rutgers, the No. 20 women's team took down Penn State as well over the weekend 1-0. Sophomore Madison Tiernan had the lone goal that doomed the Nittany Lions in the 29th minute.

This Week Ahead: The men host Michigan State on Saturday and the women are taking a Michigan trip to Ann Arbor and Thursday before visiting Sparty on Sunday.

Volleyball

Penn State took down No. 24 Northwestern in straight sets on Wednesday night, but head coach Russ Rose was not pleased a bit by his team's performance. Rose compared the game to a pillow fight in the press conference and said he saw no emotion or leadership on the floor.

Rose promised a tough practice the next day, but the preparations were all for nought. No. 15 Illinois came in and won a tight contest over Penn State, 3-1.

Like I've said all year long, this team is going to go through learning curves all year, but they'll be alright when it matters because of who they're led by. But at the end of the day, a coach can only do so much for a team.