M. Lax cruises by Elis to capture 'W' in first Ivy contest

The 15th-ranked Quakers are off to their best start since 1985. Yale's Joe Pilch, the 1998 first-team All-Ivy goalie, may have been in the net at the other end of the field. But as time wound down on No. 15 Penn's 7-2 handling of the Elis at Franklin Field on Saturday afternoon, it was Quakers senior goalie Matt Schroeder who looked like the class of the league. "Matt came up huge," said Penn attacker Peter Janney, the Ivy League Player of the Week. "He definitely showed how he can play, and we have full confidence in him." The victory brings Penn's season mark to 4-1, the Quakers' best start since the 1985 season. Although Penn has gotten the best of its foes from New Haven in two of the last three seasons, Saturday was only the third time the Quakers have beaten the Elis (1-3, 0-1 Ivy League) this decade. The win also marked the first time that the Quakers have opened league play with a victory since their 1992 campaign. Schroeder had 15 saves on the day as Yale outshot Penn, 28-24. But Schroeder's importance to the Quakers' win cannot be defined by statistics alone. In a first half where the Penn attack looked jittery and managed to score only two goals, the pressure was on Schroeder to shine. "Early on, everything was just a little sloppy," Penn coach Marc Van Arsdale said. "Our offense wasn't smooth and neither was our defense so the job Matt did was really important for us." With 2:23 left in the first half, Yale attacker Christopher McIntyre responded to a careless Penn turnover near Yale's net with a blistering shot on goal at the other end. Schroeder snagged it, preventing Yale from capitalizing on the last good chance of the half. The Quakers went into the locker room up 2-1. "I felt good since I didn't really play that well in our last big game," Schroeder said. "It was nice to get back on track." The early going for the Quakers depended greatly on Schroeder but he is obviously not the whole story. If it were not for the play of the team's top two scorers -- Janney and sophomore middie Todd Minerley, who now have 14 and 11 goals, respectively -- the Quakers might not have pulled away from the Elis. Janney and Minerley, who dominate possession time for the Quakers, accounted for the first three Penn tallies. Minerley accounted for both first-half goals, both on assists from Janney. Janney opened the scoring in the second half to give Penn a 3-1 lead, with Minerley assisting on the score. "We didn't keep possession of the ball for long enough stretches of time but those guys [Janney and Minerley] came up with some big shots that kept us ahead," Van Arsdale said. Yale is an unquestionably tough defensive team. Even though the Elis attack netted an anemic 33 goals last season in league play -- by far the lowest in the Ivies -- Yale was competitive because of its stellar team defense. True to form, Yale had most of Penn's offensive lanes plugged on Saturday. But the Quakers knew coming in that they would have to score on shots from well outside the crease and that strategy translated to seven scores. "We knew we would have to shoot well to win, so we worked a lot on that leading up to the game," Van Arsdale said. Besides accuracy from the outside, the Quakers did a number of little things right on Saturday. They won 9-of-13 faceoffs and picked up nine more ground balls than the visiting Elis. These advantages helped the Red and Blue open up the game somewhat in the second half. "We basically calmed ourselves at halftime and we looked a lot better in the second half," Janney said. The scoring opened up in the last two quarters as Penn kept the ball in the Yale end for a majority of the time. Junior Chris Wolfe came off the bench in the second half and notched Penn's first goal by someone other than Minerley or Janney with 7:07 left in the third. That was followed by goals from freshman Peter Scott and senior Jeff Zuckerman early on in the fourth to make the score 6-1 in favor of the Red and Blue. Tucker Foote of Yale finally ended the drought for the Elis with 6:27 left in the last period. Yale's offense never came together, however, as the Elis would not score again. Janney put the final nail in the Yale coffin by sending a shot past Pilch with 4:23 left in the game. This 40-foot fireball elicited some excitement from the 600 in attendance, as the Quakers sealed a low-scoring victory at Franklin Field. "I think you saw two good defensive teams out there with two big guys in goal," Yale coach Mike Waldvogel said. The 15th-ranked Quakers have every right to be encouraged by the play of their big man in goal as well as by their best start in 13 seasons.