Blue White Illustrated

Rising senior Brandon Biro was voted team captain by his peers, while class- mates Kris Myllari and Liam Folkes will serve as alternates during the 2019-20 season, Penn State announced on April 16. "It is very hum- bling and a great honor to represent this team, as well as the university as captain next sea- son," said Biro, a na- tive of Sherwood Park, Alberta. "I've had the privilege to play under three great captains during my time at Penn State and I hope to have the same impact on my team- mates and the school that they had on me." Biro, who served as an alternate to Chase Berger this past season, be- comes the seventh captain in program history and the second from Alberta, following in the footsteps of David Glen, who served as captain during the 2015-16 season. Last season, Biro finished with 16 goals and 24 assists and was an honor- able mention All-Big Ten selection. His 91 career points rank sixth on the Penn State all-time scoring list, while his 31 goals and 60 assists are tied for ninth and third, respectively. Myllari has been a defensive leader for the Nittany Lions ever since step- ping foot on campus in the fall of 2016 and will conclude his Penn State career with a letter on his sweater as a senior next season. The Kanata, On- tario, native set a program record during the 2018-19 season with his 17th career goal, the most by a de- fenseman at Penn State. His 52 points and 35 assists are tied for fifth and seventh among blue-liners, respec- tively. As a sophomore, Folkes teamed with then-freshmen Evan Barratt and Alex Limoges to form one of the highest- scoring forward lines in the nation. Now, heading into his senior season, the Scarborough, Ontario, native will don an "A" for the first time in his ca- reer as a Nittany Lion. Folkes is coming off a junior season in which he set career-highs with 18 goals and 24 assists for 42 points. He became the sixth player in Penn State history to hit the 40-point mark in a single sea- son. Folkes will enter next season ranked eighth on Penn State's all-time scoring list with 78 points. This past season, the Folkes-Barratt-Limoges line to- taled 53 goals and 70 assists for 123 points in 32 games. Its average of 3.84 points per game was the most in the nation by any one line. The Nittany Lions are slated to return 20 players from their 2018-19 roster, including their top five scorers and 11 of their top 13. LIONS FINISH 17TH Penn State fin- ished the season ranked in the top 20 for the third consecutive year, coming in at No. 17 in the final USCHO.com poll. The Nittany Lions opened the season ranked No. 16 and were ranked each week during the 2018-19 campaign, including 12 weeks in the top 10. They achieved their highest ranking of the season in the Nov. 12 poll, in which they placed eighth. The Nittany Lions have now been ranked in 66 of 72 polls since the be- ginning of the 2016-17 season, includ- ing a program-record 39 consecutive USCHO.com polls dating back to Dec. 4, 2017. Penn State finished the year paced, full-court style of play that she wants to see from her team. Success on offense, Kieger said, begins immediately after gaining possession on the defensive end of the floor. "How fast can we outlet the ball? How fast can we get up the floor with the pass or the drib- ble? It all starts in those first three steps," she said. "In terms of the challenges – put your hard hats on, because we might have a few turnovers to start with." But while she acknowledged that there are likely to be transitional difficulties along the way, Kieger's goals are not just to lift the program back to its previous stature but to build on those past suc- cesses. "Defensively, we will be physical and we will impose our will on our opponents," she said. "We will be the toughest team in the country and send a message every night that when you step on our floor you can expect the toughest team you will find. "Offensively, we are going to push tempo. We want to score as many points as possible in the first 10 seconds. We want to turn the Bryce Jordan Center into a track meet and run people off the floor. We will be unselfish and we will be pur- poseful with our actions. We will become the standard of exciting, fast-paced, po- sitionless basketball." Penn State is set to return seven play- ers from a squad that went 12-18 this past season. That group of returnees doesn't include four-time All-Big Ten guard Teniya Page, who ended her great career as the program's fourth-leading all-time scorer. But the team will wel- come back six of its top eight scorers from last year. In addition, the Lady Lions are bringing in the No. 18 recruit- ing class in the country, as rated by ESPNW HoopGurlz. Kieger has advised those players to ex- pect a different kind of basketball begin- ning next season. "We're changing the pace a little bit," she said. "But it's going to be one that our players are absolutely going to love to play, and one that fans are going to enjoy watching. Once we get it down, I think we're going to be really hard to defend." ■ M E N ' S I C E H O C K E Y BIRO Biro, Myllari, Folkes will serve as Lions' captains in 2019-20

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