BALTIMORE -- The Penn men's lacrosse team stepped onto the field at Johns Hopkins with dreams of becoming this Tournament's Cinderella story.
Three hours later, the players departed with little more than a sour taste in their mouths, as the defending champion Blue Jays used an explosive second half to end the Quakers' Tournament run, winning 13-3.
"I was proud of the way our kids played all year," said Penn coach Brian Voelker, who saw a chance at his first postseason victory slip away. "We gave great effort today."
But, he added, "We made some mistakes that were a little bit uncharacteristic of our play all year."
Those mistakes, similar to those made in Penn's regular-season losses to Harvard, Princeton, and Maryland, pushed the program's all-time Tournament record to 2-9 and its record against Johns Hopkins to 1-29.
However, this was the first time the two teams had ever met in the postseason.
And the fourth-seeded Blue Jays wasted little time making their presence felt.
After Hopkins won the opening faceoff, freshman Brian Christopher, one of the team's leading scorers, drove down the field and scored unassisted just 52 seconds in. Penn then had a chance to respond, and the Quakers were able to stretch their next possession out for roughly two and a half minutes. But they could not buy an open look at the net and would struggle to get clean shots for the remainder of the game.
The Blue Jays offense lived up to its high expectations, but it took a team effort for them to shorten both side's possessions and speed up the pace of the game -- a strategy that Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala said was his focus from the beginning.
"We thought, coming into the game, that Penn was really going to try to hold the ball, which they did."
"What helped us was playing with a lead," he added. "When there was a transition available, you saw us push the tempo a little bit."
After the early scoring, both team's defenses dominated for the next few possessions. Neither side was able to find another open shot until almost nine minutes into the opening quarter.
After that, however, the Quakers started living dangerously. With a minute and a half left in the period, the Blue Jays' Paul Rabin was finally able to find a soft spot in Penn's defense and scored. That gave Hopkins an early 2-0 lead.
Penn began the second quarter in much the same way the Blue Jays began the first, as senior Patrick Rogers created some space for himself and nailed a shot from 12 yards out on the opening possession.
But on the next several possessions, the game went from stalemate to slugfest and the Quakers found themselves unable to keep up with their opponents. Senior captain D.J. Andrzejewski was able to cut the deficit to one on a point-blank-range shot with 11:22 left in the half, but the Blue Jays had momentum on their side and it took several highlight-reel saves from Penn goalie Gregory Klossner to keep the game close.
It didn't stay close for much longer. Hopkins came out of the gate firing after halftime, scoring three goals (all assisted) in the third quarter and pouring in six more during the last period, netting three in under a minute at one point, all in transition.
"In the second half they really controlled ground balls and controlled the middle of the field, and we talked all week [about] how we had to do that," Voelker said. "We had to win faceoffs, we had to control the middle of the field [and] get ground balls."
"They had the ball a heck of a lot in the second half, and when we did have it -- because the score started to get away from us a little bit -- we started to do some things that we're not used to doing."
Penn would manage only one goal after halftime en route to being outscored 9-1 in the second half. The Quakers also failed to clear the ball four times in that stretch and seven times in the game, which overshadowed a solid 11-for-20 face-off performance by seniors Alan Eberstein and Tyson Rupprecht.
On the day, nine different Blue Jays players found the net, and the team compiled a total of eight assists. They also outshot Penn 39-31 and won the ground ball war by a 38-34 margin.
Then again, that was exactly what Penn expected out of its opponent, who had beaten highly-ranked Navy and Syracuse in the regular season and played one of the nation's toughest schedules.
"We had to put together our best game," said a clearly dejected D.J. Andrzejewski, the Quakers' leading scorer on the season.
But, as he admitted, the pride that comes from having elevated the program's competitive level from doormat to contender will likely resonate long after the pain of defeat is forgotten.
"Once 'right now' wears off, it [will feel like] a great experience," Andrzejewski said. "Being in the playoffs -- it's always fun."
"I think our program's moving in the right direction; we have some great young kids," Voelker added.
"We're losing some incredible seniors, not only players but leaders -- guys that did everything that we're asked to do as coaches and then some."
