Quakers host Brown tomorrow The road has not been kind to the men's lacrosse team -- so unkind that Wednesday's rainout at Bucknell may have been divine providence, giving the Quakers extra time to prepare for tomorrow's game with first place and No. 10 Brown (noon, Franklin Field). "The rainout gave us the opportunity to have one more day to prepare, so from that perspective it was good," Penn coach G.W. Mix said. "But we had to prepare for two days [for Bucknell] so I think we would have liked to have played them. So we're disappointed, but at the same time we're glad to have the extra time to prepare for what Brown's going to do." The two other road games, a 19-7 loss to then-No. 1 Princeton, and a 12-8 loss to Dartmouth that was the Big Green's first Ivy win in six years, have not only dropped the Quakers (4-4, 1-3 Ivy League) out of the national rankings, but out of contention in the Ivy race as well. The role now is spoiler, and a win over the Bears (5-4, 3-0) is critical in the Quakers' now more difficult quest for an NCAA bid. "The Ivy League in lacrosse is a great deal different than, say, basketball," Mix said. "In basketball, Penn may win the league and be in the Top 25, but there's not four or five Top 15 teams from the Ivy League like there are in lacrosse. That's the way lacrosse is in the Ivy league -- you can finish in the bottom half and still go to the tournament." Unfortunately for Penn, Brown presents a difficult challenge. Brown is coming off one of the biggest wins in the program's history -- a 7-6 win to hand the seemingly unbeatable Tigers their first defeat of the year. Add to that a 5-3 win over No. 16 Yale and Wednesday's 16-7 victory over Harvard, and the Bears are on a roll of gargantuan proportions -- and therefore prone to overlook the Quakers. In addition, the Bears will be here for Penn's most prominent party, an advantage for the Quakers both in terms of crowd support and potential distractions for the Bears. "We have a number of things going for us," Mix said. "We're at home, and with Fling it's a big weekend. Brown is in a position, with the big win last weekend and the big win against Harvard, that they're thinking about bigger and better things than Penn." Brown coach Peter Lasagna downplayed both the fear of a letdown and Fling's potential for distraction. "We know Penn's good," he said. "They're a very talented team, and we're worried about stopping their offense. We've had lots of fun things happen to us at Penn in the past -- people threw water balloons at us a few years ago. But we've got to look at this like a business trip -- stay in the hotel and not go out and get caught up in the Fling activities, and then go play. But we've played at UMass and in the [Carrier] Dome, which are the two toughest places to play at, so I'm not that worried." The first hurdle the Quakers have to cross is the Brown defense. Defender Greg Rozycki was named Ivy Player of the Week for his play against Princeton and Yale, and anchors a defense that has allowed only nine goals in two games. In the two games, Rozycki totaled an impressive 20 ground balls and 12 takeaways. Backing up that defense is goalie Jay Stalfort, who is only letting in eight goals per contest. "We thought before the start of the season that defense and goalie would be the strength of our team," Lasagna said. "We struggled early as people adjusted to new roles. Dennis Sullivan moved to close defense and Rozycki to defensive midfield and they've both played very well, as have our short-stick defenders." For the Quakers, this presents interesting challenges. "We have to control the ball on offense," Mix said. "They're a great transition team, and their defenders run very well with the ball. We can't let them get into those situations. They have a great goalie so we have to take smart shots. If we play at the level we're capable of playing at, we'll be OK." More enigmatic is the Brown offense, relying on a number of players to do the scoring. This is a change from Brown teams of the past that have relied on one go-to player to do much of the scoring. This year, David Evans has done some of the scoring, but he had only two points against the Tigers. Brian McNally picked up the slack in that game, scoring three goals. "We're a little bit harder to scout than Brown has been in the past, when you just had to worry about stopping one or two guys," Lasagna said. "Our offense is different now. We've been using a lot of kids out there. I think 16 or 17 people had points against Harvard." For Penn, then, the defense will play an even more critical role. "We can't afford to play a great deal of defense," Mix said. "We're not going to score 20 goals, so we have to go out and control the game and try to keep them in the single digits. If we've done that, we've done our job. And hopefully, we'll swing one more past their guy than they'll get past [Penn goalie] Steve Bassford."
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