This was supposed to be a defining season for Penn men's lacrosse.
After earning their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1989, the Quakers entered this season ranked No. 18 in the preseason coaches poll and were poised to repeat as Ivy League champions.
If last night's performance against Lehigh is any indication, however, Penn appears to be far from championship-caliber form.
The Quakers (1-3) fell to the unranked Mountain Hawks, 14-8, at the Ulrich Sports Complex in Bethlehem, Pa.
Penn was outplayed from the opening whistle by a team that Penn coach Brian Voelker believes the Quakers should have defeated.
"I thought we would go up there and come up with a win," he said. "I'm very disappointed with the way we played.
"I thought we got outplayed and outcoached, just about out-everything."
Lehigh senior captain Andrew Lucas put forth a dominant performance, scoring six of his team's 14 goals. He netted the game's first goal just 57 seconds into the contest.
Later in the first half, with Lehigh already leading 5-2, three Mountain Hawks -- Lucas, Greg Morin and David Walsh -- each scored in a span of 54 seconds, propelling Lehigh to what proved to be an insurmountable six-goal lead.
"From the opening whistle, Lehigh was much more excited to play us than we were to play them," Voelker said. "We're not going to win any games playing the way we did in the first half."
Penn opened the third quarter with more energy and stronger overall play, scoring three times in the first five minutes.
But the Mountain Hawks quickly regained control of the game, as Lucas scored three consecutive goals to extend Lehigh's lead to 12-6.
"We had a decent third quarter," Voelker said. " But we expended so much energy bringing the game close that we didn't have enough left to close it out."
James Riordan and Brian Amen scored two goals apiece for the Quakers. Also, six different Penn players scored the Quakers' eight goals compared to five different players for Lehigh. But the balanced attack wasn't nearly enough.
When asked if there were any positives to take away from the disappointing defeat, Voelker simply responded, "No, none."
"If we had played well," he said, "we could have and should have won."
Nonetheless, the Quakers will have to rebound from the loss and practice hard this week, in preparation for their Ivy League opener against Yale on Saturday.
"The bottom line is that if we play like we played against Lehigh, we won't win any games," Voelker said. "But the good news is that we've shown we can play better than that.
"There's not a game on our schedule we can't win."
