The Daily Pennsylvanian is a student-run nonprofit.

Please support us by disabling your ad blocker on our site.

03212014_maxmeyer
Men's Lacrosse vs. Princeton Credit: Imran Cronk , Imran Cronk

For years, Cornell lacrosse has dominated the top of the Ivy League standings.

But if the vastly improved Penn program has anything to say about it, there could soon be a power shift at the top.

Saturday, the No. 13 Quakers (3-2, 0-1 Ivy) will host the No. 3 Big Red (7-0, 1-0) with realistic hopes of beating their Ivy rivals for the first time since 2006.

Offense has been the name of the game for the Red and Blue in recent weeks. Penn has scored at least 12 goals in four straight contests, winning three.

Leading the charge for the Quakers has been junior attack Isaac Bock. Bock leads the Quakers with 14 points this season and had a career game on Saturday against Princeton, scoring four goals in a 15-12 loss to the Tigers.

A spotty defense proved to be Penn’s downfall in its matchup with Princeton on Saturday, as the Quakers were able to close within one goal of the lead three times before allowing a four-goal Tigers run that put the game away.

With Cornell’s third-ranked scoring offense (13.83 goals per game) coming to town, the Quakers know they will need to avoid surrendering those big runs if they want to have a shot at the upset.

“There are a lot of ways to stop [a run], and you have to do some combination of score a goal, get a stop on defense and win a face-off or ride the ball back,” coach Mike Murphy said. “And we weren’t really able to do any of those, unfortunately, at the right time [against Princeton].”

Despite losing NCAA Division I all-time scoring leader Rob Pannell to Major League Lacrosse, Cornell’s attack hasn’t missed a beat this season. Stepping into Pannell’s throne has been junior attack Matt Donovan, who has scored 18 goals this season while getting 66 percent of his shots on net.

Penn’s defense will likely not be intimidated by Donovan’s presence on the field, though.

“He’s a good player, we’ve seen him before,” senior defense Maxx Meyer said. “[He] doesn’t scare us, I don’t think he’s as talented as Rob Pannell was, but he’s the quarterback of their offense.”

Meyer was on the field the last time the Quakers came close to knocking off the Big Red, a 13-12 overtime loss in Ithaca back in 2011. The Red and Blue came back from a 7-2 halftime deficit, but fell after Cornell’s Roy Lang converted in the extra session.

With this season being his last shot at the traditional class of the Ivy League, Meyer is aching to give the Big Red a rude welcome to Penn Park.

“I want to beat them for the first time in my four years,” he said. “They’ve been historically one of the best teams in the Ivy League, and I think this year we’re poised to become one of those. It’s kind of been Princeton and Cornell [at the top].

“And frankly, we’re kind of tired of it. I’m definitely sick of it.”

Comments powered by Disqus

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.