Comeback falls short for M. Lax

Penn cut a five-goal Harvard lead to one in the final quarter but wound up losing by three. It was a typical Saturday for the Penn men's lacrosse team -- another Ivy League game, another late comeback that fell just short. "It's getting to be a little bit of an old mantra, coming out slow and playing the last 15 [minutes] the way we should the first 15," Penn coach Marc Van Arsdale said after the Quakers, ranked 19th in the country, lost to No. 18 Harvard 15-12 at Franklin Field. "Ideally, we don't dig ourselves that kind of a hole." Five minutes into the game, the Quakers found themselves down, 3-1. Junior midfielder Kevin Cadin scored at the 3:54 mark to tie the game at three; but the Crimson scored two goals in five seconds inside the last two minutes to take a 5-3 lead after the opening frame. Junior attacker Todd Minerley netted the first of his three goals -- which tied him with freshman Alex Kopicki for the Quakers' high on the day -- to open the second-quarter scoring. Harvard, however, answered twice before Quakers sophomore Mike Iannacone scored with seven seconds left to bring the Quakers back within two before heading to the locker room. The Quakers went down early because they could not beat the Crimson on the faceoff. The Quakers lost the first-half faceoff battle, 10-4, and were shutout on second-half draws. That figure is surprising because the Quakers boast one of the top faceoff specialists in the country in junior Bill Sofield, who was fifth in the nation last year in faceoff winning percentage. "[Harvard's] kid is good too," Van Arsdale said. "Sometimes somebody gets on a streak, and Harvard got hot. If you're winning the ball you can get on a roll in this game." After the break, the Crimson outscored the Quakers 4-1 through the third quarter and the opening moments of the fourth to take an 11-6 lead with 12:51 remaining. Then, the Red and Blue started to mount their comeback. "We didn't really put together a solid effort through the whole game, [but] in the second half, we just played better lacrosse," Kopicki said. "We got some big hits from different people and some big saves from [goalie] John Carroll, which gave us some momentum." Over the next eight minutes, the Quakers scored six goals to the Crimson's two, making the score 13-12 with 3:16 to go. The comeback -- during which Penn scored half of its 12 goals -- was led by two players. One is in the midst of the initial campaign of a promising career, while the other is in the midst of his final one. Senior captain Pete Janney -- an attacker who is steadily climbing the Penn record books -- and the highly-touted freshman Kopicki scored five of the Quakers' six fourth-quarter goals. Janney, who was closely guarded by Harvard All-American defenseman Jeff Psaki all afternoon, was held without a point until 11:33 remained in the fourth, when he redirected senior Mike Kehoe's pass into the back of the net. Janney got his next point when he fed Minerley, who beat Harvard goalie Keith Cynar, to make the score 11-8. Less than a minute after Harvard freshman Matt Primm scored his third goal of the day, Janney sent a rocket past Cynar and pulled the Quakers back within three. Then, Kopicki tried to bring the Quakers the rest of the way back singlehandedly as he scored the last three Quakers goals of the afternoon over a two-minute span. Coincidentally, they were the first three goals of his career. Kopicki took a feed from Janney at 5:28 and narrowed the gap to two with his first collegiate goal. Just over one minute later, after Harvard had scored again, Kopicki barreled over a Crimson defenseman and sent the ball home yet again. He scored for the final time with three and a half minutes left, making the score 13-12 and bringing the Quakers as close as they'd been to the Crimson since the 7:07 mark in the second quarter. "Those were the first goals I've scored all season," Kopicki said. "I just kept telling myself, after I put the first one in I'd be OK, and I'd be able to relax and just play." Kopicki had actually found the back of the net earlier in the day, but the goal was disallowed because Minerley had been in the crease. Even though it didn't count, it helped Kopicki to relax. "That let all the pressure off," he said. "I gained some momentum from that and just started having fun on the field." After Kopicki's last goal, the crowd of 400 stood in anticipation of the spectacular comeback that was brewing. But the Penn fans sat as quickly as they had risen when Harvard defenseman Pete Zaremba scored a mere 12 seconds later. Primm scored again with 30 seconds left to cement the Harvard victory. "You spend a lot of energy when you're coming back," Van Arsdale said. "And [the Crimson] were able to answer when they needed to. We started chasing them and they got a couple of key goals, some of their better players made good plays at the end to do it."