Penn State lacrosse's Jeff Tambroni ready for Princeton

The Penn State Nittany Lions' men's lacrosse team are highly familiar with deep NCAA tournament runs. The problem has been trying to finish them off with championships. In order for this year's iteration of the team to do so, they have to go through the first seeded Princeton Tigers, a team they are all too familiar with after beating them on the road earlier this season. Still, head coach Jeff Tambroni knows that Sunday's matchup will be a totally different game. Rather than focus on what the Tigers do best, in a recent interview, he reflected on his team's performance in the first game

"“We have a ton of respect for the amount of talent that they have, and I think one of the things that we did in the first go-around is that I just thought we played really well together. I thought our offense and defense played really well in more of a collaborative sense", Tambroni said over a Zoom interview.

Tambroni also understands the balance of this lineup as well, peppered with players both young and old. Led by sophomore Hunter Aquino, this team has coalesced at the perfect time. Still, there are players such as freshman goaltender Preston Hawkins and redshirt freshman midfielder Andrew Beard who have performed admirable but have not been truly tested. For Tambroni, he understands both sides of the coin, as he also has the experience of a Kyle Lehman and an Alex Ross to point to.

When speaking on the mental preparation for a tournament such as the NCAAs, Tambroni zoned in on both the moment and the experience factor. “You could look at that in one of two ways,” Tambroni said. “There's one side of it that you don't need to see something in order to truly believe it. You can have a tremendous amount of success if you prepare hard. But at the same time, I think having been there is more useful in preparation".