Penn State men’s soccer knows a thing or two about comebacks.

In its last five games, Penn State has come back to either win or tie each game. The team seems to thrive on being down and using that to find extra momentum to fight back and secure points.

In its matchup against Rutgers, Penn State had one of its best performances all season long. While usually lagging in the first half, it controlled the majority of possession and got off a few big chances that just missed the back of the net. And finally, right at the start of the second half, the Nittany Lions took a 1-0 lead.

But its lead didn’t last too long before Rutgers leveled the game just 15 minutes later. The game seemed destined to end in a tie before the Nittany Lions won a penalty kick in the closing moments, and converted it, to retake a 2-1 with only 30 seconds left to play in the game. The Big Ten win was spearheaded by a brace from Aboubacar Camara — the first time this season a player has scored multiple goals in a match.

Besides a little 10-minute dip where Rutgers scored, Penn State was outstanding with its passing, having about 60% of possession at halftime.

“I thought the level of composure, level of quality on the ball was excellent,” head coach Jeff Cook said. “I’m really proud of the guys. Their mentality is first class to give up a goal and then almost instantly, get right back to work was really good.

“I would give the players and the leaders a lot of credit for not giving up, not thinking all is lost,” Cook added later. “I think the coaches and the staff really bonded together to get back to the fundamental principles of the game, and we really tried to focus in our game strategies and our tactics on what are the most important things, or concepts, of the play that affect the result… Our determination to keep going, even with 30 seconds to go to try and win the game, is really a testament to the group’s commitment.”

Camara said when Penn State goes down, it’s reminded to stick to the plan and work on what they know, believing that the stars will eventually align for them.

“We’ve just been sticking to the plan, working together as a team,” Camara said. “Even when we go down like 1-0, we just keep doing that.”

While the Rutgers game was a bit of an anomaly, Penn State has often gone down by a goal or two in the first half, go into halftime, get a pep talk, and come back out to outscore its opponent in the second half.

Cook believed that the team looks at the scoreboard and finds extra energy in them to fight back, but also shared postgame the true nature of the teams they’ve faced this year.

The Nittany Lions have the fifth-hardest schedule in the entire country, meaning they need to take more time to figure out how to best approach these tough opponents.

“The first halves are going to be tactical, they’re going to be tight at this level, and we’re playing a really, really challenging schedule,” said Cook. “I also think you have to find the space to play as the game goes on…in the first half, really good start with passing the ball well. But how many real chances do we have? Maybe not as many as we would have liked, right? So how do you convert good possession into actual scoring chances, that’s the next step.”

Camara has been a strong answer to that question for the Nittany Lions so far. Coming into Happy Valley as a graduate transfer, Camara has played in seven games and scored four goals for the season. The trust put in the forward and the others on the team were the backbone for these comebacks and sticking to the plan even when down.

“Center forward play, striker play is critical to any team’s success, no matter what level you’re competing at,” Cook said. “I think [Camara’s] done really well, and we’ve been fortunate this year to have contributions from a lot of guys up in that spot. Michael Hewes has played that role, Christian Dionne, Van Danielson, Chase Oliver, so we’re gonna need everybody as the season rolls along. But Camara is in a good goal-scoring form since he’s come into the team, and we need to hope he’s a threat for us to have a chance in Friday’s game.”

After the good run of form, Penn State is heading to Indiana for the final stretch of the season. Currently, Indiana sits fourth in the Big Ten, with Penn State right below them at fifth. Indiana is 2-1-2 in the Big Ten, and 4-3-5 overall. Penn State is a bit stronger on paper with a 2-2-2 Big Ten record and 5-5-2 overall.

But that doesn’t mean it’s expecting an easy win on the road. After its poor run of form in September, Cook and the coaching staff looked back and the principles and will focus on this to try to finish the end of the season strong.

“We just decided as a group, coaches, players, staff, to really focus on our principles,” Cook said. “And we’ve been watching videos of Indiana’s game, but it’s about our team and really dialing into the details of how we can play with the ball… So that’s the basic message to the team, it’s let’s keep focusing on how well we can play. We have to really focus on this because of the strength of the opponent, but also the frequency of games, with not a ton of time between matches.”

But, of course, at the end of the day the principles, basics, and faith Cook has in his team is leading to the comeback wins that fire up the team and crowd almost every game.

“I think we have to put the scoreboard out of our mind and really focus on performance,” Cook said. “If we hit our targets and the things we want to do during the course of the game, I think the result will follow from that.”

With the positive form, Penn State isn’t going to get cocky and knows about performing under pressure both on the field and off the field as students. It’s keeping its base strong and taking everything one at a time to try to beat Indiana and finish out this season strong.

“I’m going to borrow from coach James Franklin, it’s one game at a time,” said Cook. “It’s about one game at a time, it’s about playing as well as we can. But with the philosophy of always striving for continuous improvement, and we’ve done a really good job with that so far.”