ON THE SIDELINES: Penn needs to play 60 minutes

Princeton, N.J. -- All season long, the Penn men's lacrosse team has fought to play one whole game at the intensity level it shows for brief spurts. And the Quakers had one of those spurts to begin the second half of yesterday's 19-7 loss to top-ranked Princeton. Unfortunately for Penn, the rest of the game didn't fall into that category. "They're a great team, but if we put 60 minutes of good lacrosse together, we're going to be OK," sophomore attacker Andy Crofton said. "We can play with these good teams. But if we go out and just play for five minutes, we're going to get our butts kicked, and that's what happened." The second half began with Penn down 10-3, but just over one minute into the third quarter, Princeton star Kevin Lowe was sent off for slashing. The Quakers worked the ball behind the net, where senior midfielder Paul Duncan rolled around to the left side and passed it to Crofton. Crofton fired it across the crease to junior attacker E.J. Youngling, who was making a back-door cut, and scored his second goal of the game, firing it past Princeton all-everything goalie Scott Bacigalupo. Just over a minute later, another Princeton penalty led to another Quaker score. Crofton fed junior midfielder Vern Briggs up top and Briggs fired it through a crowd past Bacigalupo. Princeton interrupted the Penn run when Jeff MacBean slid in front and shot past Quaker goalie Steve Bassford while lying on the ground. That break in momentum carried the Tigers for seven minutes, until Penn struck again. This time freshman midfielder Andy Rodriguez rolled around after a long possession until he was open, and then scored. The Tigers scored again to bring the lead back to six, but just 30 seconds later, Duncan found Crofton cutting in from the left side, and Crofton found the back of the net. Almost immediately, though, Princeton scored twice, and Penn would not score again. The main factor behind this 12-minute, 4-2 Penn run was the Quakers' return to the game plan. That plan led to a tie at 2 early, but as Princeton got settled, the Tigers opened up the seven-goal lead. "We were just moving the ball around quickly, and whenever we did that during the game, we scored goals," Duncan said. "They're not perfect. If you work hard, you can score goals on them. But we might score a couple goals, and when they get the ball back on offense, and they do their thing, they get into a rhythm and they're hard to stop." Still, the biggest problem for the Quakers to solve if they want to play in the NCAA tournament -- a problem made sharply apparent yesterday -- is the inability to extend the periods of strong play through an entire game. "Sure the score's 19-7, but when we played well, we stopped them from scoring and we scored," Duncan said. "So if we can put four quarters of what we did well together, we could beat anyone." That may not come until after Duncan graduates, as coach G.W. Mix pointed out the youth on this team is probably an impediment to its consistency. "It's frustrating to know that when we played well, we were able to play with them," Mix said. "I think that's a very positive trend for the future with as many young kids as we have on this team and our starting group, and that's a tremendous accomplishment for us. "We're trying to play the No. 1-ranked team in the country with a sophomore in goal, and a freshman and a sophomore on defense, two freshmen at midfield and two freshmen at attack. It's a tall task and I thought that they played very well." And although the Quakers were able to do that for the first part of the third quarter, their inability to carry it through the entire game eventually proved fatal. "They're a very tough team and a very well coached team," Mix said. "And if you make mistakes they're not only going to get possession of the ball, they're most likely going to score, and that's exactly what they did."

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