M. Lax flies up the rankings with wins over top opponents

While most of the campus was free of all worries and cares during its spring break, the Penn men's lacrosse team was hard at work, winning two of its three games to move up to No. 15 in the nation. "I'm relatively pleased with our performance," Quakers coach Marc Van Arsdale said. "We're playing welland we're capable of becoming very good. Overall we're not in bad shape." "Not in bad shape" would seem to be an understatement regarding the play of the Quakers (2-1). After a week which saw the team outshoot all three of its opponents and punish No. 16 North Carolina, 14-7, on the road, the Quakers are standing tall. This is a vast improvement for a squad that was 1-3 after spring break in '98. "We're a long way ahead of where we were last year," said junior attacker Pete Janney, the Quakers leading scorer. "We have good chemistry, and our attitude is a lot different -- we're concentrating on the next game and not looking too far ahead." Early on in the season-opener against Bucknell (2-1), the Quakers came out sluggish and seemed destined to repeat their 11-8 loss to the Bison in '98. After three quarters, the Quakers found themselves down 7-5. But the Quakers showed the 600-plus fans in attendance that they had little reason to worry, tallying 6 goals in the fourth quarter to pull out an 11-8 win. Led by four goals from Janney -- two in the final quarter -- and three more from sophomore attacker Todd Minerely, five Quakers found the net in the victory. "In the fourth quarter we started to gel a little bit more," senior midfielder Jeff Zuckerman said. "We extended our defense out more, caused some turnovers, and got the ball up the field quicker [for our shots]." Three days later, the Quakers didn't wait until the final period to start their barrage, outscoring No. 16 North Carolina 4-1 in the first quarter en route to a 14-7 win. Quakers freshman attacker Peter Scott opened the scoring one minute into the game and the visitors never looked back. "Going into Carolina, we had that hungry feeling," Zuckerman said. "And we were able to match up really well against them." Zuckerman notched three goals in this contest and Janney paced the Quakers attack with four for the second consecutive game, despite being marked by a returning All-American. Sophomore Jeff Sonke netted two goals for the Tar Heels (4-2) but Penn senior goaltender Matt Schroeder held the home team to just one goal in both the first and fourth quarters, recording 16 saves on the day. "[North Carolina] was clearly the best game that we played," Van Arsdale said. "It was an important win for both the program and the players." Saturday, the Quakers' quest to remain unbeaten looked very promising at the half against No. 11 Navy. Penn led 7-5 at the half but the Midshipmen were unphased -- the visitors erupted for four unanswered third-period goals on the way to a 12-8 win. Midshipman attacker Adam Borcz scored twice in the critical third period; his second goal gave Navy a 9-7 lead with only eight seconds remaining in the quarter. Behind 11 second-half saves by goalie Mickey Jarboe, Navy denied the Quakers an undefeated week. "The Navy goalie came up big in the second half and we didn't shoot the ball as well [as in the first half]," Zuckerman said. Despite the less-than-perfect ending to an impressive first week, the Quakers are content with where they stand. Eight Quakers have netted goals and the team has now gained experience against two Top 25 foes. "A lot of middies are stepping up -- people like Mark Kleinknecht, Bart Hacking and Alex Rouse are coming in and scoring goals," Janney said. "[Now] other teams can't key in on one or two of our attackers." This will be put to the test when the Quakers host St. Joseph's (1-1) tonight at 7 p.m. on Franklin Field. The Quakers beat their crosstown rivals last year 18-9. "St. Joseph's is looking to come in and pull off an upset, kind of like we were trying to do last week," Van Arsdale said.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.