“It sucks,” Kreutz said. “The last (eight) games we’ve played in, and we haven’t lost, I just never thought we were going to lose. I thought we could score that goal in overtime, and the opposite happened to us today.”

Less than a minute into the second overtime, Jordan Tyler, the only player on the Penn State squad who hails from Michigan, chipped one past Bennett after a long ball in from Mike Robinson.

“It doesn’t feel good,” senior defender Kevin Cope said. “We put ourselves in a very good position to win the game. We thought we should have won. We let Penn State come in and take one from us.”

Sophomore midfielder Jay Chapman had an early shot on goal from the left side that passed in front of Penn State goalkeeper Andrew Wolverton and bounced off the right post.

In the 10th minute, senior defender Ryan Thelen sent in a free kick that found the head of Kreutz and went in the right side of net.

For the remainder of the half, MSU unleashed a flurry of shots and ended with a 10-6 advantage in the period but, like in the 1-1 tie against Ohio State a week ago, they couldn’t find the back of the net again.

Head coach Damon Rensing preached being able to get the second goal after the draw with the Buckeyes and said the best thing to do is break down the opportunities from the Penn State game and ask if they’re doing anything wrong.

“Are we creating chances?,” he said. “Yes, we are. How are we taking those chances? About half of them we took very well. Wolverton is a very good goalkeeper and he made a couple good saves.”

The Nittany Lions leveled the score in the 51st minute when a shot from Drew Klingenberg dipped over “sophomore goalkeeper Zach Bennett”:http://www.msuspartans.com/sports/m-soccer/mtt/zach_bennett_809060.html’s head.

MSU dominated the first overtime session, holding most of the possession and unleashing four shots toward Penn State’s net.

Penn State led the Big Ten with six yellow cards coming into Sunday’s matchup, and they added to their total against the Spartans.

In typical Big Ten fashion, it was a very physical game that saw a total of 26 fouls between the two teams, and three yellow cards issued to the Nittany Lions.

After a few no-calls that could have gone either way, Cope said the calls that didn’t go the Spartans’ way is just a part of the game.

“You can’t let that get to you,” Cope said. “We showed some mental weakness throughout the game. We need to learn to deal with it and move on from things. You’re going to get a little upset but need to work through it as a team.”

The Spartans have three straight road games with upcoming matchups against 2010 NCAA champion Akron, Wisconsin and defending NCAA champion Indiana.

Rensing said with the results they’ve gotten, and the games yet to be played, there’s nothing to take for granted.

“There are a lot of teams that would like to be 8-2-2 with a top 15 RPI,” he said. “We’ve got five more games, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we went 0-5, 5-0 or anywhere in between.”