As juniors trek down Locust Walk wearing hats and holding canes on Thursday and final exams loom large within the next few weeks, Penn men’s lacrosse has something more significant on its mind.
This weekend, the third-seed No. 10 Quakers (9-3, 4-2 Ivy) head up to Cambridge, Mass., to compete in the Ivy League tournament against second-seed No. 11 Cornell (11-3, 5-1) on Friday.
If the Red and Blue win their first game, they will then go on to the championship game against the winner of the Harvard-Yale matchup on Sunday.
“Our goal is to win it all,” junior attack Chris Hupfeldt said. “Not to play one game or just to compete but to win and we are going to bring 100 percent.”
If recent history tells us anything, things aren’t looking up for the Quakers. Penn’s last loss this season was to the Big Red and it was an ugly one, one in which the Red and Blue’s defense allowed 17 goals.
“They definitely embarrassed us at home, which we actually have pictures of up in our locker room,” Hupfeldt said. “We don’t forget about that and we definitely feel like we owe them one.”
A win on Friday would mean not only revenge on Cornell but also a seventh straight win since Penn’s loss to the Big Red on March 22.
“It’s appropriate maybe or ironic [to play Cornell], and certainly is motivating,” coach Mike Murphy said. “But for us to do what we want to do we need to win two games.”
While the Big Red have been on a slide since crushing the Quakers — they’ve split their six games in that time period — Penn has been dominant throughout its six-game winning streak.
Clearly, the Quakers are not the same squad they were a month ago.
“Our stick skills are getting better,” Hupfeldt said. “Our transitions are better, we always like to push the ball and we have two-way middies which most teams don’t do, so that definitely helps us get up and down and a lot of teams can’t really run with us which gives us an edge.”
“I think you can demonstrate that we are playing better in a lot of areas,” Murphy added. “Defensively we’ve improved, offensively in the past two weeks we’ve been better and facing off we are better.”
The Red and Blue have been able to combine all their strengths into each game the past few weeks. The highlight may have been in Penn’s biggest offensive showing of the year last weekend, when the Quakers netted 17 goals against St. John’s to close out the regular season.
“We gained confidence in our offense,” Murphy said. “We learned how to play against a very good attack unit, which we hadn’t done in a while, at least not to the extent St. John’s has so it was enlightening with some new pieces and others were reminders of things we need to sure up.”
This weekend’s outcomes will have big implications both on the Quakers’ seed in the NCAA Tournament and whether or not they will be fortunate enough to play their first tournament game at Franklin Field.
But there are no guarantees in the Ancient Eight — anything can happen, and no one would be surprised.
“Anyone can beat anyone in any given week,” Hupfeldt said. “It doesn’t matter what their record or our record is coming into the game.
“Anyone in Division I lacrosse can beat anyone and we have to keep that in our minds and stay humble.”
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