The Penn men’s lacrosse team is preparing for the stretch run, and that means bouncing back is more important than ever.
And after a tough 10-5 loss to No. 2 Cornell, the team is ready to prove its strength again.
Penn (5-2, 1-1) will take on Yale (3-3, 0-2) at Franklin Field on Saturday at 1 p.m. With the home crowd’s support and a sunny day forecasted, the Red and Blue have every opportunity to get back on track.
“It’s an Ivy League game so we are always expecting a really close game, fast, up and down,” sophomore attack Chris Hupfeldt said.
Despite their mediocre record, the Bulldogs are going to be a force to be reckoned with, having taken the Ivy crown a season ago.
Most of the matches in past seasons against the Bulldogs have been one or two-point affairs, including a heartbreaking 10-9 loss at Yale last season.
The loss last weekend to Cornell, though disappointing, hasn’t weighed too heavily on the minds of the players.
“Coach [Mike Murphy] says this all the time — don’t get too high off a win and don’t get too low off a loss, just stay more at the median,” Hupfeldt said. “Wins and losses are going to happen, you just got to go with the flow and keep going.”
That being said, the team did learn some valuable lessons along the way.
Cornell stopped the Quakers from playing the game they would have liked to play.
“[This season] we were really able to run, which is what we like to do,” Murphy said. “But Cornell did a good job at keeping us from doing that for the most part.”
“We learned teams are going to try to change things up on us and not let us do what we are accustomed to so,” Hupfeldt said. “We need to change our offense around and just go with the flow.”
Part of the Red and Blue’s strategy will be to try to maintain an early lead. A fast start would make it harder for the Bulldogs to put the pressure on, especially since Yale’s strength lies in its attack.
“We know that they are an attack-heavy team,” Hupfeldt said. “The majority of their goals have come through the attacks, so we just need to be able to shut them down as a seven-man unit and play up and down, really fast.”
Although the team recognizes that it’s still early in the season, it also understands the importance of Ivy games.
“It is an Ivy League game and one of our primary goals, if not our chief objective, to win the Ivy League championship,” Murphy said. “So these [conference] games are significant to us,” Murphy said.
And coming off a 1-5 conference record last year, getting a second win in the Ancient Eight has to be the first step toward Murphy’s objective.
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