DiBartolomeo Brothers Help Penn State Lacrosse Open at No. 8 Seed
Penn state lacrosse opens the NCAA Tournament against Army on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. as the No. 8 seed, carrying the momentum of last weekend’s Big Ten title at Rutgers. The Nittany Lions have never won an NCAA men’s lacrosse national championship, and this run starts with a home-field test against a team that will visit State College.
DiBartolomeo Brothers at Penn State
Lucca, Roman and Peri DiBartolomeo are all defenders, and the three brothers have been playing together since they were kids in Lower Merion. They wanted to stay together when college decisions came, and Lucca said Penn State and coach Jeff Tambroni gave them that chance.
“We wanted to stay together when we went to college. Some schools weren’t willing to allow us to stay together, but once we came to Penn State, which has such a great pipeline with Malvern Prep, and meeting coach [Jeff] Tambroni, we decided on going here,” Lucca said.
The family bond was tested years earlier. In his freshman year at Malvern Prep, Lucca was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and an MRI showed a large mass between his lungs and left shoulder that was slightly larger than a golf ball. He missed so much school for chemotherapy that he reclassified and joined Roman and Peri.
Lucca DiBartolomeo’s Return
Peri said the diagnosis changed the family immediately. “We were young and I really didn’t understand at first, but I remember my dad telling us in the living room, and it’s the first time I ever saw my dad shed a tear,” he said. “It was one of those things that felt unreal, and actually going through it was tough, but it made me the man I am today, being there for Lucca and my family.”
Lucca said the illness pulled the brothers closer. “It did bring us closer together,” he said. Roman used his redshirt freshman season last year to learn the college game, then returned alongside his brothers in 2025. “I saw last year as a great opportunity, because I got to know the [college] game a little better and develop more as a player,” he said.
Penn State Defense and Big Ten Title
Penn State reached the NCAA Final Four for the third time in program history in 2025, and it arrives at the tournament with a 9-5 record and a defense allowing 9.05 goals per game, third-lowest in the Big Ten. The Big Ten championship last weekend at Rutgers’ SHI Stadium was the program’s first since 2019.
That puts the No. 8 seed into a direct opening-round matchup with Army and keeps the brothers at the center of a defense that has carried Penn State into bracket play again. For a program still chasing its first national title, Saturday’s start gives it a chance to turn a conference breakthrough into something bigger.
