When Penn State men’s lacrosse traveled to Columbus to take on Ohio State on Sunday, it seemed all of the momentum favored the Buckeyes after six unanswered goals. The first half ended 7-4 with Ohio State in the lead, largely due to its dominance on the faceoff.

The Buckeyes won eight faceoffs in the first half, compared to Penn State’s five. With the wins, Ohio State established both momentum and the tempo of the game, and five of its seven goals in the first half can be attributed to its momentum right off a face-off win.

After scoring only one goal in the first quarter, Penn State recorded three goals in the second, each coming off of a face-off win by Chase Mullins. While it stayed in the game due to the three late goals in the second quarter, trailing 7-4 to Ohio State was an underwhelming performance for the dominant Penn State team.

Mullins went 0-3 to start faceoffs in the game before assistant coach Andy Meyers pulled him for Colby Baldwin. After Baldwin lost two of his own and Ohio State continued to score its six unanswered goals, Penn State knew it needed a turning point.

Meyers gave Mullins a chance to step back, regroup, and communicate with Baldwin. When Mullins returned to the field, the turning point came.

The Nittany Lions went to battle and won half of the faceoffs through the rest of the game. Mullins ended the game 10-23 for faceoffs, a momentum switch seen through the eight goals in the second half alone.

“That was one of the biggest turning points for us. We weren’t just going downhill and defending every possession,” head coach Jeff Tambroni said. “We were able to go back and forth, and it finally gave us a chance to kind of level the playing field.”

After winning zero faceoffs in the first quarter, Mullins won 10 while holding Ohio State to 10 over the next three quarters. Penn State started on offense and forced Ohio State to make more transitions of its own, wearing it down and starting the Nittany Lions’ offensive dominance.

While Tambroni touched on Meyer’s communications with Mullins and Baldwin about faceoffs, he credited Mullins for not needing outside motivation.

“I think it was more about Chase’s ability to just gather his mind and be a little bit quicker off the whistle, which he was,” Tambroni said.

Tambroni discussed Mullins and the other wingers’ grit for dominance and ground balls, especially in the second half, as Penn State found another gear and everything started to come together.

“I thought between Chase and our wings, they did a nice job of picking up some touch ground balls and winning some possessions that were not just out in the open or an 80% chance that we’re going to get them, which to their credit, really started the change in that momentum,” Tambroni said.

With that momentum, Penn State dominated possession and held Ohio State to only two goals in the second half while scoring eight of its own.

With three more Big Ten games to close out the season including a hard game against Maryland on Sunday, Penn State will turn to Mullins to step up big on faceoffs to give it the momentum it needs to secure another Big Ten regular-season championship.