M. Lax caps disappointing year with loss to Delaware

In its final game of the year, the Penn men's lacrosse team could not get past the Blue Hens. Nine Penn athletes walked onto Franklin Field with one wish, to win their last collegiate lacrosse game. Their wish wasn't granted. The Penn men's lacrosse team (6-8) fell three goals shy of a victory, 14-11, to seventh-ranked Delaware (13-2) last Saturday. So the nine soon-to-be graduates did not leave the field with that one sweet memory. In 1997, head coach Marc Van Arsdale took the reins of a losing program. Three years later, Van Arsdale and the graduating seniors have built a foundation that is solid enough to foster the growth of a strong lacrosse tradition. The first two quarters of last Saturday's game were a testament to just how sturdy a foundation has been built. At halftime, the sub-.500 Red and Blue were tied at five apiece with the America East champion Blue Hens. "Penn is an excellent squad," Delaware head coach Bob Shillinglaw said. "Their record doesn't indicate anything." The Blue Hens opened the scoring as seniors John Grant and Dennis DeBusschere -- both of whom finished with four goals -- each found the net. Penn, anchored by co-captains Ziggy Majumdar on defense and Matt Schroeder in goal, took the hint and increased its level of defensive intensity. For the next eight minutes, the Quakers held the Blue Hens scoreless. Following the defensive leadership by the seniors, three underclassmen -- Todd Minerly, Scott Solow and Peter Scott -- each scored to give Penn a one goal lead. With 7:01 left in the third quarter, junior Pete Janney -- who led the Ivy League in overall points scored with 53 -- netted his first of three goals to tie the game at 7-7, the fifth tie of the game. But Hens senior Kevin Lavey stepped into the spotlight and broke open a close game when he scored three of the last four goals of the period to give Delaware a comfortable four-goal lead, 11-7. "The lead in the middle of the third quarter really helped us," Shillinglaw said. "Their guys never let down. I think they continued to fight but there was just a little more bounce to our step." The Hens' bounce turned into a leap when Grant, a Player of the Year candidate and the nation's top scorer, netted the last two goals of the game to increase his season point total to 96. "[Delaware] just had a little too much firepower," Van Arsdale said. "But it was a good game, the guys all played hard. The way we played today would have beaten a lot of people." After three devastating losses and a two-week break from competition, the Quakers played an intense, competitive game to end their rollercoaster season. The Red and Blue kicked off the year with the ultimate emotional high, easily defeating then-No. 9 North Carolina, 14-7. Penn had made its mark, and the tone was set for the rest of the season. Six games later the Red and Blue were still going strong, the owners of a 5-1 record. The Quakers' seventh game of the season proved that the number seven was no longer lucky. Penn lost an overtime heartbreaker to Ivy League foe Harvard by one goal. The next two games saw the Quakers plagued by the same luck, as their record soon fell to 5-4. On April 6, Penn matched up against Ivy rival Princeton. The game epitomized the Quakers' season, as they let a 7-3 lead slip through their fingers and lost 9-8. The Tigers, meanwhile, went on to a perfect 6-0 Ivy season and yet another NCAA Tournament berth. Penn again tasted victory when it crushed Dartmouth, 12-2, on April 11 for its second Ivy win of the season. It turned out to be the last tally in the win column for the Quakers. The 1999 Quakers have experienced every high and low imaginable. They know how it feels to crush a nationally ranked team as an underdog. They know how painful a one-goal game hurts when you lose a lead to your biggest rival. For the graduating seniors, these are emotions they will never again experience. "I'm going to miss it a lot," Majumdar said. "Never again in your life can you do something like this."