Late wake-up call for M. Lax

For three quarters, it seemed like the seniors on the men's lacrosse team forgot yesterday's matchup against Towson was their last home game.

But in the final 15 minutes, Penn's 10 seniors turned it on, leading the Quakers to a 5-0 fourth quarter and a 10-6 come-from-behind win over the Tigers.

"[The seniors] had some slack to pick up because in all honesty I thought a bunch of them had bad games early in the game," coach Brian Voelker said. "But they kept at it and kept working. Our defense kept us in it the whole time, but those guys did a great job [at the end]."

For the first 45 minutes, the Quakers (4-8, 2-4 Ivy) played catch-up, falling behind 4-2 at halftime and 6-4 late in the third quarter. Strong defense - a rare sight for this Penn team earlier in the season - kept it close.

On the offensive end, however, the Red and Blue were unable to produce much of anything. They turned the ball over 18 times before the fourth quarter and couldn't finish their scoring chances. In those quarters, the only bright spot offensively was sophomore Morgan Griff.

The 6-foot-8 attack scored the Quakers' first two goals, including one in which he took the ball the length of the field before finishing. He completed a hat trick with a momentum-changing goal with one second left in the third quarter, bringing the score to 6-5.

"Morgan's tough," Voelker said. "He's a tough matchup, he's real tall and when he dodges hard he's tough to stop. He shot the ball well today."

From that point on, however, the seniors took over. Senior attack Craig Andrzejewski scored on a feed from sophomore Corey Winkoff - who had three assists on the day - to tie the game 42 seconds into the fourth quarter.

Senior midfield Drew Collins had his hand in the next two scores, assisting on a goal by junior attack Rob McMullen and firing a low shot to give Penn an 8-6 lead. Andrzejewski tallied two more goals to complete a hat trick of his own.

"I think we realized it's our last quarter on Franklin Field and that definitely gave us a little drive there," he said. "Collins hit a big goal, and it really fired everyone up."

Defensively, too, seniors Greg Sih and J.J. Lian were critical to maintaining possession late in the game, shutting the Tigers out in the final period.

All members of the Class of 2009 saw significant playing time in yesterday's victory. Five started, including senior goalkeeper Greg Murray - making his first start since a 12-6 loss to Denver March 6 - who recorded four saves before leaving the game in the third quarter with cramps (probably due to the 90-degree temperature).

Despite a losing season season and yesterday's shaky start, the seniors gave themselves a home finale to remember and allowed themselves to leave Franklin Field on good terms.

"It definitely feels awesome, something we'll remember for a long time and look back on," Andrzejewski said. "If we lost, you remember that for a very long time and that's not a very good feeling."

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