Bears come to Franklin Field for M. Lax dual

The Penn men's lacrosse team plans to make mince meat out of the lowly Bears this weekend. Promotion and relegation are on the line during the Penn men's lacrosse game this Saturday at 1 p.m. against Brown on Franklin Field. The winner will head into the remainder of its schedule with a chance to catch the top three in the Ivy League. The loser gets to sink further into an abyss. Brown (1-7, 1-2 Ivy League), the squad that Penn men's lacrosse coach Marc Van Arsdale called "the best 1-7 team ever," comes into the weekend match-up with a deceptive record. Although the Bears suffered a 13-8 home defeat to Harvard last Wednesday, their prior six losses came to teams ranked nationally in the top 12. The visit to Penn (3-5, 1-2) will be the first time Brown has played a team in the middle of the Ivy League standings this season. The Bears have lost to top conference opponents Harvard and Princeton, while having its way with cellar-dweller Yale. Nevertheless, if past history is an indicator, the Quakers figure that they will have a busy day. "Brown has always been a very scrappy team when the ball is on the ground," Van Arsdale said. "They play solid team defense and are very effective in exploiting another team in its transition game. They have usually been a team that can pile up a lot of goals." Penn, like Brown, has a chance to reach the .500 mark in its Ivy League record, but to hear Van Arsdale tell it, the overall win-loss mark is of little concern. "We have stopped worrying about the big picture," Van Arsdale said. "All that matters is the game that we have with Brown on Saturday." Penn improved last weekend against Dartmouth by concentrating on playing better on both ends of the field. "What separates our team now from what we were a month ago is that we're finally gelling together -- everyone knows his role, everyone knows each other better," Penn attackman/mid-fielder Michael Kehoe said. The result, according to Kehoe, is a stepped-up effort on defense, leading to more opportunities on offense. It does not seem as if Penn needs more offensive production. Three Quakers -- Pete Janney, Todd Minerly and Joe Mauro -- lead the Ivy League in points scored with 14, 12, and 10, respectively. Another strength for Penn is the continued solid goal-tending out of Matt Schroeder. The senior net minder has the highest overall save percentage among conference goalies, at 61.9 percent. According to Van Arsdale, a .600 save percentage or better is considered very good. Although Penn has the premier last line of defense in the Ivy League, the team expects a barrage of shots. The key players include Brown attackmen Rob Lyle and Mike Satin, who lead the team with 18 and 14 goals each. Also, Bears mid-fielder Jed DeWick is supporting the arsenal with 11 assists. "[Brown] is a dangerous team," Penn attackman John Ward said. "They play well together, they're a veteran group, and they have some good individual players." The critical question becomes whether Penn's big offense will shut down Brown's small attack. "Maybe we can capitalize on [Brown's] defensive size and offensive attack," Ward said. "We have some big defensemen to get the ball at our own end, and we'll have the advantage at our attack if we keep our feet moving against their defense," John Ward said. As of late, one of the top priorities for the Quakers has been winning 50-50 balls, which can be the difference in who controls the flow of the game. "Ground balls is something we've been working on," Ward said. "It is about who wants the ball and goes down on the carpet more. That's something we'll need to focus on once again." Penn can't stop after getting balls off the carpet. The Quakers need to get them into the back of the net as well, preferably early in the game. After an early blitz proved successful in last week's 15-7 win at Dartmouth, the Quakers now seek to come out strong right from the opening faceoff, possibly with some added help from the visitors. "Brown's goalie [Strider Dickson] has been rattled all season," Kehoe said. "If we get quick goals on him, we can shake him up, discourage his confidence a little bit and control the tempo of the game." Penn will need to do that early and often if it wants to walk away satisfied, as a fork in the road stands in the way of a season's success or failure. "We can't really look back at the first eight games and second guess ourselves," Ward said. "We can still do a lot of damage in the Ivy League and shake things up -- it really comes down to people's heads and people's hearts."