Another game, and it's the same old story for the Penn men's lacrosse team.
After making an improbable fourth-quarter run to trim their deficit against No. 12 Dartmouth to one, Penn was again unable to notch the tying goal in an 8-7 loss to the Big Green yesterday at Franklin Field.
The loss was Penn's fifth one-goal loss this season and extended its month-long losing streak to eight games. Three of those one-goal losses have been by a score of 8-7.
"We can't seem to get over the seven-goal hump," Penn coach Brian Voelker said.
Penn (1-9, 0-5 Ivy) managed to rally from a four-goal deficit and outhustle the Big Green (5-2, 1-0 Ivy) for the final 15 minutes.
Even though they outshot Dartmouth 18-7 during the final period, the Quakers could not find the equalizer despite having multiple chances after they had cut the Big Green's lead to one.
Twice during the final two minutes, Voelker called a timeout to set a play. But Dartmouth mustered enough pressure to cause the Quakers' plans to go awry.
"We had a couple of plays that we set up. ... The last one we kind of threw the ball away a little bit, didn't really have a chance to run," Voelker said.
One of the reasons why the Quakers failed to capitalize on their last series of possessions was the absence of leading scorer, D.J. Andrzejewski.
The junior midfielder suffered a concussion during the middle of last Tuesday's double-overtime loss to Princeton. Although Andrzejewski finished the rest of that game, he was not medically cleared to play yesterday against Dartmouth.
"Not having D.J. out there today definitely hurt us," Voelker said. "Especially when you lose a couple of games by a couple of goals."
Voelker cited precautionary measures as the reason for Andrzejewski's absence from the lineup. He is expected to return for Penn's final three games of the year.
Penn began to mount its comeback after Dartmouth's Ryan Danehy scored less than a minute into the fourth period to give the Big Green its largest lead of the game, 8-4.
And the player who stepped up was junior attacker Luke Dixson.
The quick and elusive wingman scored two consecutive goals, one with 9:12 remaining and the other with just under four minutes to play, to put the Quakers back in the game.
Dixson scored his second goal, and less than a minute later, junior James Riordan tallied his ninth goal of the year off of an assist from junior Patrick Rogers.
With senior goalie Denis Cole coming up with big saves to prevent any insurance goals by the Big Green, Penn was left with three minutes to tie the game.
Without Andrzejewski, Penn was able to spread the ball around on offense with accurate passes. But when it came time to attack the net, the Quakers seemed tentative in taking the final shot.
"We don't have the guy who can kind of put the offense on his shoulders and carry the load," Voelker said. "But we have a bunch of guys who hopefully can do it."
But yesterday, that plan backfired for the Quakers when it mattered the most.
