Looking to bounce back

After being blown out at Princeton on Tuesday, a visit from last-place Brown may be just what the No. 7 men's lacrosse team needs.

The Bears come to Franklin Field tomorrow looking to halt a five-game skid and to notch their first Ivy victory of the season against a Penn team also in need of a win.

After falling to Princeton on Tuesday, the Quakers (8-2, 3-2 Ivy) are in a bit of a precarious position.

If it wants to have any chance at the Ivy League title, Penn is depending on a victory tomorrow and help from Princeton, Cornell and Harvard -- each of whom has only one loss.

Despite the fact that the only teams Brown (2-7, 0-2 Ivy) has beaten this season are Hartford and Bellarmine -- who boast only two wins between them -- the Quakers are not taking the Bears lightly.

"Any team in the Ivy League is a good team, so we're treating Brown like they're one of the best teams in the country," senior midfielder P.J. Gilbert said. "We need to win this game, so we don't have room to be complacent and go in overconfident."

There might not seem to be much to worry about when it comes to a team that has shot just .228 on the season and trails its opponents in nearly every statistical category. However, Brown does have one weapon that could prove troublesome to Penn: a stopper in goal.

That certainly gave Penn problems against the Tigers. The Quakers couldn't seem to put one past Princeton sophomore goalie Alex Hewit, who is currently on pace to break the Ivy League record for goals against average.

Brown senior Nicholas Gentilesco doesn't boast a particularly impressive statistical resume -- his 9.74 goals against average and .517 save percentage do not rank him among the top of the Ivy League. However, those statistics are likely depressed by Brown's anemic offense.

Gentilesco may be a force Penn will have to reckon with.

"When you have a good goalie, he can kind of keep you in games," Penn coach Brian Voelker said. "I think their kid has done a little bit of that."

One such game was Brown's 10-6 loss to No. 17 Harvard on Tuesday.

The Bears went into halftime tied up with the Crimson before managing to net only one second-half goal. Even after Harvard's run in the second half, the margin of victory was less than in the Quakers' loss to the Crimson earlier this season.

That defeat is a continual reminder to the Red and Blue that any game can be lost on a given day.

"It's hard to compare these guys against a team like Princeton," Voelker said of the Bears. "But I think they have talent, and if we don't play well they can win the game."

This may have been the case when the Quakers traveled to Rhode Island last year and became one of the Bears' two victims in the Ivies.

But this is a whole new Penn squad, and the Quakers know that they have to get down to business if they want to have a fighting chance to win the Ivy League and get a favorable seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Fortunately for the Quakers, their must-win game comes against a perennial Ivy cellar-dweller.

Even so, Penn will have only one thing on its mind tomorrow.

"We need to come out and play our game and win the game," Gilbert said. "We absolutely need to win this weekend."

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