Friends, your Army Black Knights finished their regular season in fine style, winning out, earning the #1 seed in the Patriot League Tournament, and then trouncing Lehigh then Loyola to earn the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. This is the nightmare scenario for college lacrosse’s blue blood programs. The #12 Army Black Knights are in, and they’re playing their best lacrosse of the season right when it matters most.
Thanks to Bucknell’s late out-of-conference loss to UMBC, Army’s RPI dropped enough that they must travel to Penn State tomorrow to take on the #7 Nittany Lions. This is arguably the best match-up they could have drawn and certainly one of the most interesting.
Good morning Army men's lacrosse fans 🤩#FamilyToughnessTradition pic.twitter.com/yuMHYyJsXE
— Army Men's Lacrosse (@ArmyWP_MLax) May 4, 2026
#7 Penn State Nittany Lions
Penn State comes into this weekend’s contest at 9-5, 3-2 in the Big Ten through regular season play. But despite early-season losses to Navy, North Carolina, Johns Hopkins, and Michigan they finished the year strong. They beat Maryland and then Johns Hopkins in the Big Ten Tournament, to become conference champions. Moreover, the Nittany Lions also hold an early-season win over current #1 Princeton. They therefore have a very good team if one that has played erratically at times this season.
Amazingly, however, Army might actually have the better team on paper. Looking at common opponents, Army did better in every case. Army beat Navy, 14-9. Penn State lost to Navy, 11-12. Army beat Michigan, 13-11. Penn State lost to Michigan, 8-9. Army lost a one-goal heartbreaker at UNC, 11-12. Penn State lost by two, 8-10, on a neutral field. Finally, Army has four USA Lacrosse All-Americans in M Evan Plunkett (1st Team), D John Sullivan (3rd Team), SSDM Keagan Treacy (Honorable Mention), and G Sean Byrne (Honorable Mention). Penn State has just three, D Alex Ross (2nd Team), SSDM Jon King (3rd Team), and FOGO Reid Gills (Honorable Mention). Oh by the way, Army G Sean Byrne also leads the nation in save percentage.
With that said, Penn State FOGO Reid Gills will present the Black Knights with a serious challenge tomorrow afternoon. Gills has won an outstanding 113/181 faceoffs this season (62.4%). He’ll match-up against Army’s Robert Simone, who’s improved over the course of the season, and who typically gets better in the second half of his games, but who has still won just 144/287 faceoffs this year (50%). Army will need to bring in the wings early and turn every restart into a bare-knuckled mosh-pit. If the Black Knights can do that and win a few ground balls, it will go a long way toward evening the time-of-possession advantage the Nittany Lions will expect in this game.
From Army’s Championship win over Loyola, via Lynn Fern. See her full gallery on Patreon page.
Overall, Penn State seems to play a similar style to Army in the sense that they don’t necessarily score a ton of points, but they move the ball well, fight hard for ground balls, play good defense, and don’t give up a ton of points. However, they scored 16 points against Johns Hopkins, only three of which came unassisted, all off the stick of junior A Kyle Lehman. Sophomore A Hunter Aquino led the team in points with 2 goals and 2 assists, but *11* different players scored and 5 had assists. All of this is stylistically similar to what we often see from the Black Knights.
Still, Penn State beat Johns Hopkins primarily by controlling possession. They won 19/28 faceoffs, picked up 37 ground balls to Hopkins’ 29, cleared more successfully, and turned the ball over just 9 times compared to Hopkins’ 10. With that, Penn State got off 48 shots to Hopkins’ 25. Penn State G Preston Hawkins had to make just 6 saves in just under 58 minutes of work.
ALL-AMERICANS 🇺🇸🫡
— Army Men's Lacrosse (@ArmyWP_MLax) May 7, 2026
FOUR of our guys earned All-American honors as announced Thursday by @USA_Lacrosse! Congratulations to Evan, John, Keagan, and Sean 👏👏👏
🔗 https://t.co/8Gik442FDh#FamilyToughnessTradition pic.twitter.com/BGGCERR7Ka
Match-Up Notes
To win tomorrow, Army will need to muddy up the faceoffs, contest ground balls violently, and make the most of their opportunities when they’re on offense. As noted, Penn State has a great FOGO and some great defensive players. However, they do not have a guy to match Army’s Evan Plunkett, with 23 goals plus 39 assists. His brother Hill comes in with 29 goals plus 25 assists. A Brayden Fountain has a whopping 41 goals and 10 assists. Firstie A Gunnar Fellows adds 35 goals and 16 assists. All four of those guys individually have shown more offensive production than anyone who plays for Penn State. State’s Lehman arguably comes closest with his 24 goals plus 10 assists, and that’s barely more than half of Brayden Fountain by himself.
If Army can manage time-of-possession and keep the playing field level, they have every chance this weekend. However, if Penn State wins 75% of the faceoffs and earns more ground balls, they’ll probably also finish ahead on the scoreboard.
Can the Black Knights win and advance? We’ll find out tomorrow at 2:30 PM on ESPNU.
All-Americans 🤝 America’s Team#GoArmy pic.twitter.com/mhh6Ku1fyf
— Army Women's Lacrosse (@ArmyWP_WLax) May 7, 2026
Final Note: Army Women’s Lacrosse plays tonight at Fairfield, starting at 6 pm on ESPN+. Considering that they already beat Fairfield 15-8 this season, they really should win that one.
Go Army! Beat Fairfield! Beat Penn State!!!
