M. Lax has its way at Lafayette

In some quarters, Ivy League athletics is viewed as an oxymoron. In the world of men's lacrosse, though, the Ivies are in a league of their own. Five of the seven Ivy League teams are ranked in the top 20 by the USILA. Princeton and Brown are in the top 10. Penn is on the outside looking in on the Ivy elite and has gone down in its first two Ivy League contests, a 16-13 edging by Yale and last Saturday's 21-5 rout at Harvard. It is in this context that the Quakers played at Lafayette yesterday, a match -- with their next four opponents all Ivy League foes -- they needed to win. Penn (4-3) destroyed the Leopards, 19-6, in a contest that was even more lopsided than the score indicated. "I think the team did pretty well bouncing back from a pretty tough loss [at Harvard], probably the toughest loss of my career," said sophomore attacker Jon Cusson, who was one of the offensive stars with five goals and three assists. "A lot of people came out fired up," Cusson continued. "I think everyone was geared to come out considering we had some pretty big Ivy League games coming up." When the starters were in for Penn, the match was, to put it gently, not competitive. The Quakers led 6-1 after the first quarter and 14-1 at the half. After halftime, when the subs started to trickle in, Penn played even with the Leopards (0-2) and coasted to the 19-6 win. It was a marked and refreshing change from the Quakers' two previous losses, in which they were down big at the half. "They were overmatched from the beginning, " said freshman attacker John Ward, who chipped in with three goals and three assists. "It was almost like we were scoring at will on cuts." Besides the offensive fireworks by Ward and Cusson, junior attacker Andy Crofton had four goals and five assists to complete a 23-point effort from Penn's attacking trio. Twelve Quakers recorded at least a goal or an assist against Lafayette, a big improvement from Saturday's five-goal performance against the Crimson. Helping Penn offensively was its play on faceoffs -- a major problem against Yale and Harvard. The Quakers won 15 of 24 faceoffs for the day. "It's nice to have a big win in terms of offensive output," Cusson said. "I definitely think we will get momentum from it." Penn will need all the momentum it can muster. After Cornell, the Quakers face three top-20 Ivy foes -- No. 5 Princeton, No. 20 Dartmouth and No. 9 Brown. "It was a must-win game," Ward said. "We have to feel good about the win, but they weren't too strong of a team. We are going back to the heart of our schedule again."