The road can be a lonely place, especially when wins are in short supply.
On Saturday, the Penn men's lacrosse team continued to have less than pleasant experiences away from Franklin Field, where the Quakers are still undefeated. The Red and Blue fell to Dartmouth, 9-4, in Hanover, N.H., dropping their road record to 0-4 this season.
"It's a weird thing, I really don't know. Before the game I thought we were ready to play," senior co-captain Will Phillips said. "We had our game plan down and were ready to come out and execute. ... But we just didn't execute and do the small things that help us win at home."
Penn (5-4, 2-2 Ivy) started the game against the Big Green (6-2, 1-0) with more energy and confidence than it had in its previous two road contests, following a 10-8 win over No. 9 Cornell last weekend. The Red and Blue have found trouble at the beginning of road games, falling behind Yale, 3-0, Army, 4-0 and Johns Hopkins, 2-0 before getting on the scoreboard.
But against Dartmouth, the Quakers were able to strike first.
Sophomore James Riordan opened the scoring off of a Phillips feed with 6:46 remaining in the first period following a 30-second offsides penalty on Dartmouth's Lucas Robertson. The assist by Phillips, who added another on junior Zandy Reich's goal later in the first, extended his point streak to 27 games.
Reich's goal put the Quakers up 2-1, but Russell Radebaugh was able to put the ball past Penn senior goalie Ryan Kelly with 48 seconds remaining in the first period to make it 2-2. The teams then exchanged goals, both scoring within 27 seconds before the end of the period.
"At the beginning of the first quarter it was 3-3, but we still really weren't playing that well and still weren't clicking that well," Phillips said. "We were still a little off of our game and unsettled."
Penn managed to play the Big Green even for the most of the first half and outshot them 15-11. However, only eight of the Quakers' shots were on goal in the first half and only 15 of their 34 overall shots during the game.
"We ran our offense well enough to get plenty of scoreable shots, but we just did a poor job shooting the ball," Phillips said. "Mostly we were missing the net. The kid [Dartmouth goalie Andrew] Goldstein had a good game, but we really didn't even give ourselves a chance."
Goldstein had 10 saves in the game compared to 11 by Penn's Kelly.
Dartmouth sophomore attackman Jamie Coffin began to take over the game late in the second period, feeding Ben Grinnell who put the ball in the net and gave the Big Green a 4-3 lead.
Dartmouth took the momentum it gained late in the half into the locker room and came back with more energy than the Quakers.
Coffin continued to befuddle the Penn defense, as he scored 1:21 into the half and then assisted on Alec Hufnagel's goal 73 seconds later. Coffin finished the game with three goals and three assists.
The Quakers pulled within 6-4 on sophomore D.J. Andrzejewski's ninth goal of the season, but Penn was unable to make a late charge. Dartmouth managed to hold off the Red and Blue, scoring three goals in the last four minutes to top an impressive performance.
"Really the defense did a good job when it mattered," Phillips said. "When the defense holds a team to that few goals we should be able to get a win out of that."
The battle between the two Ivy League competitors not only had implications for the Ivy League championship, which Dartmouth is defending, but also on the national scene.
The game hurt the Quakers nearly as much as it helped the Big Green. With its second loss, Penn all but mathematically fell out of contention for its first Ivy title since 1988 -- the last time a team won the Ivy League with two losses was in 1969.
The contest also gave Dartmouth an advantage in the case that the teams would need to use an at-large bid to advance to the NCAA Tournament. With the way Princeton is playing, the Tigers are a near lock to go to the tournament and more than two Ivy teams rarely reach the postseason.
Dartmouth 9, Penn 4
First Quarter -- 1, 6:46, Riordan (P); 2, 4:28, Grinnell (D); 3, 2:34, Reich (P); 4, 0:48, Russell (D); 5, 0:32, Haire (P); 6, 0:21, Radebaugh (D);
Second Quarter -- 7, 1:38, Grinnell (D);
Third Quarter -- 8, 13:39, Coffin (D); 9, 12:26, Hufnagel (D);
Fourth Quarter -- 10, 9:30, Andrzejewski (P); 11, 3:07, Coffin (D); 12, 2:17, Coffin (D); 13, 1:08, Daniels (D).
