Facing the second-best team in the nation tonight, Penn men's lacrosse has nothing to lose.
No. 2 Princeton (8-1, 1-0 Ivy) will travel south on Interstate-95 today to face the Quakers (2-6, 1-3) in a 7 p.m. matchup under the lights at Franklin Field.
Though both squads are coming off wins, the circumstances are far from similar.
The Red and Blue overcame a poor offensive showing with strong defense to oust Ivy bottom-feeder Dartmouth, 9-6, on Friday. The next day, the Tigers dispatched then-No. 2 Syracuse, 12-8, in front of thousands at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. The win allowed Princeton to leapfrog the Orange in the national polls and become the highest ranked Ancient Eight team in the country.
Among the crowd in East Rutherford were Penn's assistant coaches, scouting arguably the best defense Penn will see all season.
The Tigers' defense has given them a goals against average of just over seven, only once giving up more than nine scores in a contest. Much of the credit for this accomplishment goes to first-year goalkeeper Tyler Fiorito, who is 10th in the country in both goals against average (7.56) and save percentage (60.2).
"He's playing as well as anybody in the country right now," Penn coach Brian Voelker said. "[Princeton is] always known for having a tough defense. This year is no exception to that."
On paper, the Tigers have the offensive edge as well. They've outscored the Quakers 12.22 to 8.75 on the season, led by last year's Ivy League Rookie of the Year, Jack McBride.
The sophomore attack from Madison, N.J., leads his team with 23 goals and 28 points - even though he did not play March 8 against Manhattan.
The key for Penn, according to Voelker, will be ball control and time of possession. Draw specialist Justin Lynch needs to win faceoffs to give the Red and Blue every possible opportunity to score, while at the same time minimizing the Tigers' chances.
"We need Justin to step up and be the guy that he can be at the faceoff X," Voelker said. "We need to get really good wing play because we can win the faceoffs against these guys, but they're athletic enough to get the ball."
Both squads are a bit banged up given the short turnaround from previous games, but at this point in the season, no one is one-hundred percent.
"Nobody's going to play a perfect game . you can't tippy-toe around and try to play perfect," Voelker said. "We really have nothing to lose, we're just going to see if we can pull the big upset."
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