The Penn men's lacrosse team received an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament on Sunday, the 10th time the Quakers have qualified for the postseason in program history.
Penn (10-3, 4-2 Ivy League) will visit perennial power Johns Hopkins, this year's No. 4 seed, with the game tentatively scheduled for May 13 at 1 p.m.
It will be the 30th all-time meeting between the Quakers and Blue Jays (8-4), but the first in the postseason. Johns Hopkins leads the series, 28-1. The last meeting came at the start of the 2004 season, when the Blue Jays pulled out a 10-9 win at their home facility, Homewood Field.
It will also be a homecoming of sorts for Penn head coach Brian Voelker, who played at Johns Hopkins and was an assistant there from 1997 to 2001.
"This is a great day for our program and for our seniors in particular," Voelker said in a press release after the draw was announced. He added that the team "really set the tone during the offseason that we were not going to have a repeat of last year, and seeing our name come up on the screen was vindication for all the work they have put into this season."
After reaching the NCAA Tournament in 2004, Penn failed to do so last year, finishing the season with a 2-11 record.
As for this year, Voelker admitted that "This is obviously a tough matchup."
"Hopkins has experience in the NCAAs and will be ready to defend their title," he said. "However, after the season we have had, I think our guys feel a lot of confidence, and so we hope to see that carry over to next weekend."
The winner of the Penn-Johns Hopkins game will face either No. 5 seed Syracuse or Harvard. They will meet at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, N.Y., on May 14 at 7 p.m., and the game will be televised on ESPNU.
Two other Ivy League teams, Cornell and Princeton, also made it to the NCAA Tournament, and will both play their first round games on May 13. The No. 6 seed Big Red will host Massachusetts at 1 p.m., with the game televised on ESPNU, and the No. 7 seed Tigers will host Maryland-Baltimore County.
For more information, check back on dailypennsylvanian.com throughout the week, and pick up Friday's Graduation Issue.
