M. Lax loses to extend Tigers streak

The Quakers pestered Princeton but lost at Old Nassau to give the Tigers their 27th straight Ivy win. The Penn men's lacrosse team may have gotten Princeton somewhat out of its rhythm yesterday afternoon, but the Tigers' beat goes on. By defeating the Quakers, 10-4, at Princeton's Class of 1952 Stadium yesterday afternoon, the No. 4 Tigers extended their Ivy League winning streak to 27 games and upped their season record to 5-1, 2-0 in the Ivies. Although Princeton won both halves of yesterday's contest, 5-2, the Quakers (3-5, 0-4) did a laudable job of disrupting the Tigers when the Ivy powerhouse had the ball on offense. "Our team defense really solidified. Any time you hold a team like that to 10 goals or so, it's a moral victory," Penn freshman goalie Ryan Kelly said. "We can't get used to being satisfied with those, though." Kelly performed pretty well in between the pipes for Penn. He had 15 saves on 36 shots in 59 minutes of action, but he was at a loss when it came to stopping Princeton's B.J. Prager. The sophomore attacker equaled his career high with four goals, which he has now done four times, including last Saturday against Yale. Prager, a quick and scrappy threat with the shortstick, has a knack for darting away from defenders off the ball. He demonstrated this ability by throwing in a quartet from very close range, twice in each half. "You can't ever lose him. He's too dangerous," Kelly said. "We'd lose him, and all of a sudden he'd be right there to put one in." Prager's day might have been even better, had two of his shots not hit the pipe. He has now scored a goal in 17 straight games and 18 of 19 for his career. Due to Penn's tenacious team defense yesterday, however, Prager was the only Tiger to score more than one goal on the day. "In general, I think that both our team defense and Ryan [Kelly] did a good job of holding them to 10 goals," Penn coach Marc Van Arsdale said. "I thought Bill Fowler did a great job on Matt Striebel." Striebel, a junior attacker who plays something of a quarterback position for Princeton, was held to just one assist on the day and scored no goals. This was only the second time thus far this season that he has been held to fewer than two points. Josh Sims, the Princeton attacker with the most points on the team who is now tied with Prager with the most goals at 15, was also held to a mere assist yesterday at Old Nassau. But the Orange and Black did an even better job silencing Penn's big guns. Pete Janney, Penn's leading scorer on the season with 25 points on 14 goals and 11 assists, was held scoreless by the Tigers. Junior middie Kevin Cadin was the only one of the Quakers' four leading goal-scorers to put one in the net. "One of the best things that they do is shutting down a team's attackers up front," Van Arsdale said. Cognizant of this fact, Van Arsdale put Janney in the midfield for much of the game -- drawing some Princeton defensive pressure away from the cage in the hopes of freeing up scoring. Van Arsdale's attempt was obviously unsuccessful on the whole, given the scant four goals produced. Also, none of the four goals scored came from an attacker -- all four came from middies. Cadin, Billy Reidy, Jake Martin and Billy Sofield each notched a goal. "They slid really well and shut us down a lot," Kelly said. "It looked like they were the best team we've seen so far with defensive quickness." The Quakers had numerous promising moments yesterday. After being down 3-0 after the first quarter, the Red and Blue battled back with a flurry on the offensive end. In a span of merely 38 seconds in the beginning of the third period, Martin and Sofield deposited balls in the cage, each off an assist from Todd Minerley to make it 3-2. "I thought we did a good job there," Van Arsdale said. "Todd Minerley fed both of those. We were moving the ball around, which was what we needed to do against a team like that." This was as close as the Quakers would get, however. The Tigers defense collapsed, and Sean Hartofillis and Prager made it 5-2 at the break. Three unanswered Princeton goals late in the third quarter gave the Tigers a six-goal lead and put the final nail in the Penn coffin.