Men's Lacrosse is movin' on up

The Penn men's lacrosse team, ranked 15th, is 3-1 in the young season. This winter, Penn basketball fans were excited about parallels to 1979, when the Quakers went to the Final Four. This spring, the men's lacrosse team is already making its own parallels -- to 1989 -- when Penn last went to the NCAA Tournament. That year is also significant to Penn men's lacrosse because it was the last time that the Quakers beat North Carolina. Until last Tuesday, that is. The Quakers stunned the Tar Heels with a 14-7 trouncing and moved up to No. 15 in the rankings. Junior Pete Janney, who led Penn with 29 goals last season, tallied four scores in Chapel Hill on his way to Ivy League Player of the Week honors. It is the second straight year that Janney has opened the season by capturing the award. One of the reasons that Penn was able to take down the Tar Heels was its improvement on faceoffs. After winning 153 out of 329 last season (47 percent), the Quakers have been all over faceoffs this season, capturing 62 of 99 so far. "Faceoffs are extremely critical to the way we've been trying to play," Penn coach Marc Van Arsdale said. "It's a major part and so is much improved team defense, making it much more difficult for other teams to score their goals." That improved team defense is anchored by senior captain Ziggy Majumdar. Goaltender Matt Schroeder, the other captain, will also be key to the Quakers chances. The senior, who posted a .598 save percentage while playing all but 10 minutes last season, was particularly strong against North Carolina, holding the Tar Heels scoreless from 12:53 in the third period until 12:49 in the fourth. "Matt was outstanding against UNC," Van Arsdale said. "The imbalance of the score was [also] in part because of their lack of preparation for us. I don't want to take away from the effort that our guys made and I don't think that Carolina would have won the game but we might not have won in such a convincing fashion [if the Tar Heels had been better prepared]." North Carolina has no excuse for not being prepared for the Quakers, who were ranked No. 20 at the time. In addition to Janney, sophomore Todd Minerley -- Penn's top assist man -- is back with a year of experience under his belt. While that means Minerley should himself be better prepared, it also means that the opposition should be ready for him. Last season, however, Penn was guilty of the same poor preparation when they faced Bucknell, according to the Bison. After good efforts against Navy and Virginia, Penn lost to Bucknell with a showing that, at the time, Van Arsdale called "pathetic, maybe the worst I have been associated with." "They're coming in looking at us as a 'W' and all of a sudden it's 5-1," Bucknell coach Sidney Jamieson said. "The mental part of the game just killed them last year. This year was completely different." Jamieson is referring to the Bison's March 6 visit to Franklin Field, when the Quakers started their campaign on the right foot with an 11-8 victory. After returning from North Carolina, Penn had a good showing but fell to Navy, 12-8. Tuesday night, Penn moved to 3-1 -- a better start than even the 1989 team, which opened at 2-2 -- as it beat St. Joseph's, 16-8. Penn will begin its Ivy League season Saturday when Yale visits Franklin Field at 2:30 p.m. The Elis stand at 1-2, having beaten Drexel, but fallen to Colgate and perennial powerhouse Syracuse, which hosts the Quakers April 24. Penn, though, is not focusing on that game, or any other, right now. "Our attitude is to take it one game at a time," Janney said. "Getting to the NCAAs is a goal and the ultimate goal is the national title but Yale this weekend is the first test. We've got to go out and show what we can do." The matchup with the Elis will allow Penn to see where it stands in the league. After beating Yale 18-9 in Van Arsdale's first season, 1997, the Elis beat Penn, 12-7, as the Quakers fell from 3-3 in 1997 to 1-5 in 1998. "Last season, Yale really handed it to us," Van Arsdale said. "I'm curious to see how we do after a few good performances, and we'll try to build on playing well each game. Harvard's a team we haven't beaten, and that'll be a good telling game for the ultimate outcome of the season." Penn's drought against the Crimson extends to 1993 but the rainclouds might be rolling in. "Looking at them preseason, I thought [Penn] would be a much improved team over last year," Harvard coach Stan Anderson said. "They have learned from [last season] and put themselves in a position to improve." After its visit to Cambridge, Penn will travel to Cornell for another "yardstick" game. "Cornell seems to have things going pretty well right now," Van Arsdale said, while Anderson put Cornell just behind Princeton, Brown, and Penn in his evaluation of the Ivy League. "If we continue to possess the ball the way we have, and get the play out of [Schroeder] that we know he's capable of, we can certainly beat anyone on our schedule," Van Arsdale said. The toughest "anyone" on the schedule will be Princeton as always. But the Tigers may be vulnerable after losing their first two games this season, against Johns Hopkins and Virginia. "With Princeton graduating as many guys as they did, we've got a chance," Janney said. "We've waited a long time and we just might." Janney stopped himself and refocused on the game against Yale, but that ultimate goal is tough to ignore. As there was talk of 1979 on campus all winter, the spring could certainly be a mirror of 1989 for the Quakers.