MacBean’s Hat Trick Lifts No. 12 Penn State to Dominant Win Over West Virginia – Penn State

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Highlighted by the 25th hat trick in program history, as well as the first hat trick of redshirt senior forward Kaitlyn MacBean’s career, No. 12 Penn State women’s soccer rolled to a dominant 3-1 victory over the West Virginia Mountaineers Thursday night on Jeffrey Field.

MacBean, a native of Excelsior, Minnesota, continued to etch her name in the Nittany Lion history books following Thursday night’s effort, scoring the first hat trick at Penn State since Payton Linnehan dropped a trio of goals against Central Connecticut State in the first round of the 2023 NCAA Tournament a year ago. Her three-goal outing surpassed her previous career-high mark in single-match scoring, which included a brace in the 2023 NCAA Tournament Round of 16 matchup against upcoming opponent Saint Louis.

Her historic effort against the Mountaineers also ensured that MacBean would move into a tie for the third-longest goal-scoring streak in PSU history, as the veteran striker booked her seventh consecutive match with a goal to tie Maya Hayes, Katie Schoepfer and Christie Welsh in the category. MacBean became the first Nittany Lion student-athlete to record at least one goal in seven consecutive contests since Hayes accomplished that feat in a span running from August 21 to September 11, 2011. MacBean currently stands on six goals through her first four outings this year, already surpassing her 2022 scoring total while needing just four more goals to match her effort from 2023. MacBean finished the night with five total shots and four shots on target in addition to her three tallies in just 49 minutes.

With Thursday night’s result in hand, the Blue & White improve to 3-1-0 overall through their first four matches on Jeffrey Field in the 2024 campaign, while West Virginia falls back to .500 with a 2-2-0 mark through the early going in non-conference competition. In the all-time series with the Mountaineers, Penn State celebrated the 24th all-time meeting by building its lead over WVU to 14-7-3 overall since the first fixture in 2003. The Nittany Lions have picked up victorious decisions against West Virginia in each of the last five meetings while remaining unbeaten against WVU through each of the last eight.

PSU’s dominant final line was accompanied by an overall effective performance on both ends of the pitch, with the Blue & White finishing the night with 13 total shot attempts in addition to eight shots on goal. West Virginia managed to get…