Penn State men’s lacrosse fell to Princeton 14-10 in the NCAA Quarterfinals on Sunday, ending an up-and-down 2026 season. Princeton finished with 49 shots, 31 being on goal, which proved too much for the Nittany Lions to handle for four quarters. The defense was strong in the first half, but looked tired toward the final minutes.

Despite losing rhythm defensively, freshman goalie Preston Hawkins had a career-high 17 saves.

“Princeton is a good team, they have a lot of good shooters,” Hawkins said. “But, ultimately, the defense was in front of me all day, getting shots they wanted to see. They were the reason I was successful today.”

Penn State finished with nine caused turnovers and went 23-for-24 on clears. A large part of that was because of the play of the PLL first-round pick, Alex Ross. He was tasked with Nate Kabiri, one of the nation’s best attackmen.

Head coach Jeff Tambroni said after the game that he believes Ross has always been one of the nation’s best defenders, even if he doesn’t get credit for it. Tambroni also mentioned the standard that he sets in the locker room every day.

That standard, along with the ones fellow seniors such as Jon King and Will Costin set, will be missed as much as their talent.

“All the way down to our freshman, I’m so thankful to have every single one of them, and it hurts to have our season go out this way, but I’m so thankful to have them as my brothers, and soon-to-be best friends,” Chase Robertson said postgame. “I’m just so thankful to have them in my life to this day, and in the future.”

Both Hawkins and Robertson were adamant about emphasizing their teammates’ personalities over how good they were on the field.

“It hurt a lot to see my teammates, my brothers, cry, especially our seniors and captains,” Robertson said

While a few of the Nittany Lions’ best and most experienced players have graduated, a really strong young core still remains.

“It’s tough to think about next year right now, but I know our entire offense is going to be so excited to come back. We bring back a lot of great pieces with Kyle, Liam, Jack as a freshman, Hunter, and everyone in our midfield and our attack, every single one of them can start for us,” Robertson said. “They are great teammates, and amazing people to play with on the field, knowing they’re changing direction.”

While the offense has a great future, it struggled to find strong shots against Princeton. The team had only 27 attempts and 18 shots on goal.

Many possessions were left with one or two shots taken before the shot clock wound down. While the team kept up with Princeton for most of the game, the offense relied on individual plays rather than the team lacrosse they had used all season.

Last week, Tambroni said the team would work on shooting leading up to the game. The team scored the same number of goals as last week on fewer attempts. But the time of possession and pressure from Princeton was eventually draining.

“Princeton plays extremely confident one-on-one, less support-driven than most teams that you face; it is a little bit more like Army, which didn’t happen all as much today as it did last time,” Tambroni said. “That had its impact on everything. Certainly, the amount of possessions that we had made it really hard in the fourth quarter. You can just see the weight of the first three quarters weighing down on our guys, like most wins, like most losses, they’re multifactorial.”

The loss marks the fourth year in a row that Penn State has made it to the NCAA Tournament but fallen short. Tambroni mentioned that in his 26 years as a head coach, he has yet to know the feeling of walking off the field in his last game a winner.

“You put so much time and effort, and then you’re exhausted from the week of preparation and exhausted from the game, and then it ends, and you’re asked to figure out your emotions and try to compartmentalize the whole thing, the whole season,” Tambroni said.

While Penn State didn’t achieve its ultimate goal of winning a national championship, Tambroni said that isn’t the only goal of a season.

“Every year, the mission is the same, to build and sustain that championship culture, and that’s what I’m most proud of,” Tambroni said. “I don’t think they failed today, I just think we lost today, and at the end of the day, you hope that they can step back, and the goal for these guys is less winning a national championship, more have no regrets.”