M. Lax falls to Harvard in frigid March wind

Despite goalie Matt Schroeder's 25 saves, the Penn men's lacrosse team lost again, 16-13. The cold, wind and rain Saturday at Franklin Field had more of an effect on the fans than on the players. Feeling the chill, the majority of the crowd at the game chose to leave early, missing Penn's run of five goals in two minutes, which cut the lead to one with 2:16 left in the game. Unfortunately for the Quakers' fans left in attendance, the visiting Crimson crushed Penn's comeback, leaving the Quakers (1-4, 0-1 Ivy League) with a 16-13 loss. The defeat was Penn's fourth in a row, and the victory kept Harvard (3-0, 1-0) undefeated on the season. In a reversal of earlier season matches in which Penn fell behind early, this time it was the Quakers' inability to ignite a spark in the third quarter that dug the team a hole it could not escape from. "We had fought our way back from deficits in the first half," Van Arsdale said. "We needed to come out and get control of things in the third quarter, which is what we didn't do. If you look at the game, I think it was in the third quarter where it was lost." For the majority of the game, Harvard's defensive shutdown the Quakers' offense. Penn's attack was limited to only two bursts of productivity, one in the beginning of the second quarter and the other at the end of the fourth. Those two spurts accounted for 70 percent of Penn's total output. While the Quakers wanted to divide the offense between the midfield and attackmen, Penn's trio attack of Todd Minerly (three goals), John Ward (one goal, three assists) and Pete Janney (three goals, one assist) carried most of the burden. On the other end of the field, Harvard's offense had many opportunities. Even with Penn goalie Matt Schroeder contributing 25 saves during the game, the Crimson continually found the back of the net. Captain Mike Ferrucci led the way for Harvard with three goals and three assists, while Lawson De Vries added another four goals. "Matt played very well in the goal for us and we still gave up 16," Van Arsdale said. "That is probably a credit to their offense. We need to be a little sharper on the execution end. A few loose balls here and there that they through back into the cage really broke our backs at critical times." After a slow start, the Quakers fired back in the second quarter. Down by three goals, Penn went on a 6-2 run, giving the Quakers their only lead of the game. Janney accounted for three of those goals and an assist. In his last goal in the series, Janney rifled the ball past the goalie while jumping through a crowd of three Harvard defenders. The momentum was short-lived as Harvard connected on four of their next five offensive possessions to take a 10-7 lead at the half. At the end of the second quarter three of Harvard's goals resulted from its ability to pick up the loose balls, especially on face-offs, and convert them into goals. "We were winning the ball between the lines and having our guys just run," Ferrucci said. "Penn plays a real aggressive defense, so if we beat them the slides are going to be long. That is what we had to do and we accomplished that toward the end of the second quarter." Coming back out into the miserable conditions did not inspire the Quakers as Harvard picked up from where they left off. After limiting Penn to one goal in the third quarter, the Crimson went into the fourth comfortably ahead 14-8. "We tried to get back too much too quickly," Penn middie Jeff Zuckerman said. "When we get down on offense we need to hold it a little more and give our defense a bit of a rest, but that did not happen in the third quarter. We had a whole second half to do that, and we were only down by a couple of goals." Penn midfielder Bart Hacking added a goal early in the fourth to cut Harvard's lead to five, but it was not until Penn middie Joe Mauro bounced one in past Harvard goalie Keith Cynar did the Quakers start to show signs of life. The string of goals cut the lead to 14-13. "Our wing play on the face-offs picked up," Zuckerman said. "When we got the ball down on offense we started to move a lot more as a team. More assisted goals resulted where people were getting two or three passes before scoring." Similar to the end of the second period, the final face-offs of the game were vital. During Penn's run, Zuckerman fought hard to give Penn possession on three straight opportunities. Harvard's Brad Oliphant ended the Quakers' hopes when he took the face-off after Penn had pulled within one. The possession resulted in a Crimson score, giving them a two-goal cushion with 1:33 left. "It was a big scare," Ferrucci said. "We have not had too many games where it has been that close this year. We know Penn has a lot of offensive power, so we really had to control the ball between the lines. We weren't doing that toward the end of the game." For the Quakers, their lack of intensity throughout the game caused their performance to peak and fall at inopportune times. With their last-minute heroics coming up short, Penn again realized that it was too little, too late.

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