Host M. Lax steamrolls Dartmouth

Pete Janney paced the Quakers with five goals in a 12-3 win as Penn rebounded from a three-game Ivy losing streak. The Penn men's lacrosse team was ferocious yesterday. Like a guard dog left without food for a week, the Quakers, left irritable by three crushing one-goal Ivy League losses, pounced on the next unsuspecting visitor to Franklin Field. Too bad for Dartmouth(2-4, 0-1 Ivy League), which suffered a 12-3 defeat at the hands of the resurgent Quakers (6-4, 2-3). "I wasn't as pleased by the score as by the effort and energy that we mustered in the second half," Penn coach Marc Van Arsdale said. In the first half, the Penn attack was, in Van Arsdale's words, "a step out of sync." The Quakers owned a precarious 2-1 margin at the break. The second half, however, was all Penn. The Quakers went on a rampage, outscoring Dartmouth 10-2. Junior attacker Pete Janney's shortstick galvanized Penn's goal production yesterday. He notched a season-high five tallies to up his season goal total to 29, head and shoulders above every other Ivy hopeful. In the words of first-year Dartmouth head coach Rick Sowell, "When he [Janney] gets his hands on the ball, it's lights out." It was not as if the Big Green were oblivious to the threat that the former Ivy Rookie of the Year posed to their defense. His two previous four-goal games this year -- against Lafayette and Cornell -- should have given them ample warning of his explosiveness. "That kid Janney, we were just trying to stop him and we couldn't," Dartmouth sophomore Alex Grishman said. After a lackluster offensive first half in which the Quakers capitalized on only two of their 19 shots on goal, the attack turned things around in the second. A mind-boggling 31 shots made it to the net guarded by Andrew Dance and 10 made it by him. "They had a freshman matched up on me so that was a little motivation for me," Janney said. "As far as their team defense, I think that we were going about it the right way. We found the holes and played it real well." But Janney was not the only story of the day for the Red and Blue offense. Senior midfielder Jeff Zuckerman had a five-point day. He dished out three assists, just as he did against Princeton earlier in the week. This lifts his season assist mark to 14, equalling his total from last year with four games still remaining. Penn's second-half offensive dominance stemmed from a balanced attack. While Janney was the only squad member to find the back of the Dartmouth net in the first, a host of Quakers chimed in later on. Sophomore attacker Todd Minerley, senior middie Bart Hacking, freshman middie Mike Iannacone, sophomore attacker Kevin Cadin and junior attacker Chris Wolfe all logged one goal apiece in the second half. Although senior co-captain Matt Schroeder has been solid in net through the Harvard-Cornell-Princeton dry spell, yesterday saw his re-emergence as a dominant presence. He was the linchpin of a murderously effective Penn defense with 17 saves on 25 shots. In limiting Dartmouth to only three goals, Schroeder's performance was very reminiscent of the job he did in the team's other Ivy win against Yale on March 20. The Quakers' 7-2 victory there left the Elis speechless. The Big Green had every reason to be just as dumbfounded after yesterday's game. Schroeder gives most of the credit to the longsticks in back. "Our defense was great," Schroeder said. "We had Ziggy [co-captain Ziggy Majumdar] back today and he was a great addition. Every guy that came in today played well." The Dartmouth scoring, rare as it was, came from three men. Erkki Mackey had one goal and one assist, while Conner Price and Georges Dyer also found the net once each. The Big Green found themselves on the short side of nearly every statistical category yesterday. They were outshot 50-25, lost 11-of-19 faceoffs and picked up 14 fewer ground balls. The Quakers victory is encouraging -- they pulled away from a quality Ivy league opponent and stopped their streak of one-goal losses at three. Still, they should put the euphoria on hold for a while. Last year's 15-7 trouncing of Dartmouth preceded a 13-9 loss to Brown. Penn fans should hope their team is confident as the Quakers make their way to Providence at the end of the week. They should also hope that their team is mindful of the difficult task awaiting them in the Brown Bears.