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was ranked last in shots (28), seventh in points (13) and fifth in goals per game (1.0). Junior forward Connor Maloney was the Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year in 2014 after leading the league in scoring, but Warming predicted prior to the season that Maloney "will be a marked man" this season, and that's cer- tainly been the case. Heading into a Sept. 20 visit to Ohio State, he had attempted only three shots, with one goal. The Nittany Lions were picked third in the Big Ten's preseason coaches' poll, behind Maryland and Indiana. But on Sept. 13, they defeated the 10th-ranked Hoosiers, 1-0, at Jeffrey Field. Indiana outshot Penn State, 7-4, but the Nittany Lions got a second-half goal from junior defenseman Robby Sagel and three saves from Bersano, extending a shutout streak over the Hoosiers that now includes three consecutive 1-0 victories and 462 score- less minutes. The only drawback to Bersano's hot start is that it's doubling as a fantastic finish. He spent three seasons with the Beavers and has only one year of eligibility at Penn State, having enrolled this past summer as a graduate transfer. "I have one season of eligibility left," he said, "so there's no time to mess around." But even after Bersano joins Wolverton in the professional ranks, Penn State's "special situation" is likely to continue. One key facet of its emphasis on the goalkeeper position has been the estab- lishment of the Mack Brady Memorial Soccer Fund. Started in 2013, the fund is aimed at helping Penn State recruit, equip and train goalkeepers. It's named for the son of Christian Brady, dean of the Schreyer Honors College. Mack Brady died in December 2012, just a few weeks short of his ninth birthday, after a sudden illness. He had been a huge soccer fan and a goalkeeper himself, and Penn State has honored his memory by designating one match each season the Mack Brady Game; this season, it was the game against the Hoosiers. "It's the only fund like it that we know of in college soccer," Warming said. "We have an endowment now to recruit, retain and develop the best goalkeepers in the country. That is a special thing – to have Mack's patch on the training gear for the goalkeepers and to have a fund that is devoted solely to developing the best goalkeepers in the country. "We are off to a pretty good start with that with Andrew Wolverton being our first guy to graduate in three and a half years from Penn State with a great grade point average and [a pro career with] the LA Galaxy. He is a pretty good first rep- resentative of that, and within this group of goalkeepers are some guys who can follow in those same footsteps." ■ Penn State has won 16 Big Ten regu- lar-season championships, so it was not exactly a huge surprise when the Nittany Lions were anointed this year's favorites in a preseason vote of the league's coaches. Also not surprising: Penn State coach Erica Walsh's reaction. "It's not something we spend a whole lot of time thinking about," Walsh said. "One of the things we talked about before the [season] start- ed was reputation vs. character and talking about what other people think of us, whether it's in our own commu- nity or around the country vs. what we are doing on a daily basis and the way we carry ourselves. We are much more concerned about the character of our team than we are about rankings." If she's right, the former will take care of the latter. So far, it's looking as though she's right. Penn State won five of its first seven games, and among those victories was one of the biggest in the program's re- cent history, a 2-0 shutout of No. 2 Stanford in Palo Alto. Coming off of a disappointing 1-0 loss to West Vir- ginia in Morgantown in early Septem- ber, Penn State rebounded with goals from sophomore forward Frannie Crouse and redshirt sophomore de- fender Brittany Basinger to defeat the Cardinal. The Lions also got four saves from goalkeeper Britt Eckerstrom, whose strong performance in the net helped them overcome a 16-4 dispari- ty in shots attempted. "I am incredibly proud of how the players responded to the loss against West Virginia," Walsh said. "They stuck to the game plan and executed against a really good Stanford team. "I think we are a young team and we learn a lesson from each game," she added. "The team was not pleased with their performance against West Virginia and they were anxious to get back on the field. There was a buzz about the group that we did not see last week." Two days later, that buzz still hadn't worn off, as the Lions wrapped up their West Coast road swing (and their nonconference season) with a 1-0 shutout of Santa Clara. Heading into their Big Ten season, the fourth-ranked Lions were being led by senior forward Mallory Weber with four goals and 10 points. In addi- tion, Crouse and sophomore forward Megan Schafer had contributed three goals and seven points apiece. Penn State's balanced scoring, cou- pled with Eckerstrom's stalwart play in goal, has created a lot of options as the team moves into its Big Ten sched- ule. Early in the season, Eckerstrom called the Lions' versatility "terrify- ing." "I think we are going to be super dan- gerous in creating a lot of different op- portunities," she said. "It will be pretty cool to watch this season." –M.H. WOMEN'S SOCCER Versatile Lions off to strong start

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