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19 regular-season championships and eight league tournament titles. But the road to this year's tourney crown was a bit bumpier than some observers may have expected. The Nittany Lions had been ranked sixth nationally in the preseason poll thanks in part to an infusion of young talent, and their outlook was buoyed, too, by the ar- rival of Coffey. The junior midfielder had won first-team All-America honors at Boston College before electing to transfer, and she wasted little time winning over her new teammates at Penn State. Said red- shirt freshman midfielder Ally Schlegel, "With a transfer, you could really get any- thing. You don't know how they're going to mesh with the team. But Sam came in and blew everybody's socks off." The team's chemistry didn't yield im- mediate results, but that was partly due to the ambitious nonconference schedule that coach Erica Dambach had arranged. As she explained in August, "We've got to know where we stand. We've got to know what our strengths are and how we're able to break down opponents. We also need to know the things we need to work on." The Nittany Lions came up short in their opener against third-ranked Stan- ford, 2-1. They also dropped their last two nonconference games, falling to Okla- homa State and to fourth-ranked Virginia by identical 2-1 scores. Four days after the loss to the Cavaliers, Penn State was shut out at home by Michigan, 1-0, in its Big Ten opener, and it went on to drop two of its next four conference games. Following a 3-2 dou- ble-overtime loss to Rutgers on Oct. 3 at Jeffrey Field, PSU was 6-6-1 and 2-3-0 in the Big Ten. The turnaround began three days later at Ohio State. Schlegel scored four min- utes into the game, and Penn State never relinquished its early lead, eventually building a three-goal edge and holding on for a 3-2 win. That victory over the Buckeyes turned out to be the first in what would grow into a six-game win streak to close out the regular season. Then came the league tournament, in which everyone seemed to be peaking at just the right time. Lin- nehan was named Offensive Player of the Tournament, goalkeeper Amanda Dennis won defensive MVP honors, and Penn State claimed its first tourney crown since 2017, extending its win streak to nine games heading into a first-round NCAA tournament matchup with Stony Brook on Nov. 15. The Lions won that one, too, scoring three times in the second half for a 3-1 victory that propelled them into a sec- ond-round meeting with Arizona. The team's earlier struggles may have seemed like distant memories as players hugged and celebrated following their victory over Michigan. But as far as Dambach was concerned, those tough losses set the stage for what was to come. "The challenges we faced in the early part of the 2019 season were the driving force behind [the] championship," she said. "Thanks to the leadership of our up- perclassmen, this team stayed the course and believed in the process. I'm tremen- dously proud of the way this team has grown and battled throughout the sea- son." ■ The Penn State men's soccer team saw its eight-game unbeaten streak come to an end in the Big Ten tourna- ment semi;nals, as Michigan won, 1- 0, on Nov. 15 at Maryland. "This was a hard- fought battle, typical of a Big Ten tourna- ment match," head coach Je< Cook said. "Michigan is an out- standing team and I'm proud of our players for putting forth such an amazing e

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