LEWISBURG - Christa Matlack saw nothing but an empty goal mouth in front of her.

Penn State All-American goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher was sprawled out on the ground to the left of the net, left in the wake of a one-touch sidestep from the Bucknell forward. Matlack's shot approached the net, bouncing every two feet or so, as it traveled from the center of the goal toward the left post.

It wasn't an unfamiliar site for Matlack. The South Williamsport graduate is averaging just over four shots a game as the Bison's best scoring option. What has been unfamiliar, at least up to this year, is the path that soccer ball took.

It was like the ball was magnetized, with the polar opposite magnetism drawing it toward the white, round post. Matlack can't explain how that shot hit the inside of the post but still bounded outside the net early in the first half.

Call it bad luck. Maybe even call it karma after scoring nearly 180 career goals at South Williamsport High School, and almost 20 more in her first two years at Bucknell. Whatever you want to call it, the Patriot League's preseason Player of the Year can't explain it. She's perplexed as to why after scoring at will for nearly her entire soccer life, she's only scored one goal this year.

When her wide open shot against Penn State on Wednesday night at Emmitt Field finally rolled out of bounds, it was almost expected. Matlack just shrugs her shoulders when she tries to figure out why the ball isn't hitting the back of the net.

Her chances are clean - and deadly. They're just not going in. It's like Kobe Bryant hitting the front iron of the rim with no defender bearing down.

"It's really frustrating," Matlack said. "But you can't let it get to you. You just have to keep shooting. You're going to miss any shot you don't take. You have to keep shooting no matter the result."

It's a matter-of-fact answer to the dumb question of just how frustrating her slump is. But she doesn't consider it a slump, and neither does Bucknell head coach Ben Landis.

They see the same thing when they look at her season. They see scoring opportunities for the junior. They see that Matlack is still getting shots on goal. There's no worry that shots aren't going in, just a little frustration. There would only be worry amongst Landis and Matlack if she was passing on shots because she was afraid to miss.

"She scored almost 180 goals in her career," Landis said. "She knows how to finish.

"If I'm the (Patriot) League, and it hasn't clicked for her yet, I'm worried because it hasn't come yet. Because it is going to come. And it's going to come during league play."

It's not as though Matlack has forgotten how to finish her chances. Sure, her one goal in 38 shots this season doesn't calculate out to a very pretty shooting percentage, but she knows how to play the game. She was one of the five best players on the field during last night's 0-0 tie against Penn State, and two of those five were clearly Naeher and Bucknell keeper Kathryn Sutton.

She's still the magician with the ball at her feet that led to 58 goals her senior year of high school and a PIAA championship for South Williamsport. She's still got a deadly shot off either foot that made her the greatest goal-scorer in District 4 history.

"It's just not going in," Matlack said. "There's nothing I can do if the ball hits the post and bounces out. I'll just try one more time. It makes me feel a little better that I'm still getting shots. But I'll feel a lot better once they start falling."

"If she gets a clean look at the goal and gets shots on frame, it's going to come," Landis said. "Unfortunately it didn't come (Wednesday). The last four games she's taken 25 or 30 shots with two-thirds of those on frame. That's a good sign."