The Quakers may no longer be in the hunt for the men's lacrosse Ivy League title, but that doesn't mean things aren't interesting for the teams that are still in it.
Three Ancient Eight squads - No. 4 Cornell (4-0), No. 14 Brown (3-0) and No. 19 Princeton (3-0) - remain undefeated and are duking it out. Penn has lost to all three.
The Bears are the hottest of the trio right now, having won their last seven games. And while none of those wins have come against ranked teams (they had a pair of close losses earlier in the season to Denver and Hofstra, both ranked), the Bears have put together three wins in a row against quality opponents, on the road, to boot: Delaware, Yale and Penn.
Through it all, Brown has been riding on defense - its strength - which has been especially impressive, holding Delaware, Yale and Penn to just 19 total goals.
Unfortunately for the Bears, though, history isn't on their side. Either Cornell or Princeton has had at least a share of the conference title for the last 13 seasons. (Princeton split with Brown in 1995, the last time the Bears won.)
And on top of that, Cornell will have home-field advantage when Brown makes the trip up to Ithaca, N.Y.
Princeton hopes to hit its stride at the right time. The Tigers had shrugged off disappointing losses to Johns Hopkins and Virginia, plus a 10-2 embarrassment at Albany. They have won the Ivy games they were supposed to, although not without a fight - a comeback plus overtime was needed to dispatch Harvard in Boston.
An offensive outburst has helped turn non-conference woes into Ivy promise, most notably from Jack McBride, who got six of his 17 goals in a win over Penn. He averaged a goal a game in non-conference play, but has 10 goals halfway through league play.
Still, Princeton is without a recent win against quality opposition, unless you count a grind-it-out affair against Rutgers. Things will clear up soon, though. Saturday, the Tigers host favored Cornell, and if they win that they should be in pole position with just two games left.
Cornell swept the league en route to the national semifinal last year, and there's been little to suggest they're destined to a different fate. Their talisman goaltender Matt McMonagle is gone, but the Red have not needed him: They average over 11 goals a game for the season. In the Ivies, Cornell has averaged 12 goals scored and 7.5 conceded.
When your team leads the Ivies in goals scored by 24, you likely have the leading scorer on your team. Cornell does: Ryan Hurley, at 36 goals, has 15 more than the next-best scorer. But he has depth at his side, with five more Red snipers in double figures. John Glynn and Tommy Schmicker have combined to win 59.7 percent of faceoffs, so it hasn't mattered much that their team is by far the most turnover-prone in the league.
An overtime squeaker over Yale could have been cause for concern, but Cornell dulled the sting of the near-loss with wins over Harvard and Dartmouth. In between, it lost the annual matchup with then-No. 1 Syracuse handily. There'll be no such hurdles in the league, though - No. 19 Princeton is the biggest challenge left.
