Men's Lacrosse Schedule Released

The men's lacrosse team released its schedule today for the Quakers' first season under new head coach Mike Murphy. And he doesn't look to be taking any time to ease into the new role, as this year's schedule looks to be tough as ever.

The Quakers open on Feb. 27, traveling to Durham, N.C., to take on Duke. The Blue Devils fell in the NCAA Semifinals last year, losing to eventual champion Syracuse, and look to again be in the mix for the national championship. They end the regular season with another ACC title contender in Maryland, traveling to College Park, MD on May 4. From what I've read, those two are the widespread favorites for the crown this year.

This season will also feature the inaugural Ivy League Tournament. As I wrote in an article last year, the top 4 teams in the Ivy League will play in a two-round tournament and the victor will receive the League's automatic bid to the NCAAs

All in all, the Quakers will take on 6 of the 16 teams that played in last year's NCAA Tournament (including 3 Ivies), and 7 that ranked in the top-20. Read below the jump for the full schedule and my comments.

Home games in CAPS Ivy League games denoted by * Last year's NCAA Tournament Teams denoted by %

Saturday, Feb. 27 ... at Duke% Wednesday, March 3 ... at Lafayette Saturday, March 6 ... at Denver Sunday, March 7 ... at Air Force Wednesday, March 10 ... SAINT JOSEPH'S Saturday, March 13 ... VILLANOVA% Saturday, March 20 ... at Princeton*% Saturday, March 27 ... CORNELL*% Saturday, April 3 ... at Yale* Saturday, April 10 ... BROWN*% Saturday, April 17 ... HARVARD* Saturday, April 24 ... at Dartmouth* Tuesday, May 4 ... at Maryland% Friday, May 7 ... Ivy League Tournament semifinals (site TBA) Sunday, May 9 ... Ivy League Tournament final (site TBA)

Noticeably absent from this schedule? A date with Drexel, likely spelling the end of this budding rivalry. Penn opened its season against the Dragons in each of the past two years, but it looks like that's come to an end. New Drexel (and former Penn) head coach Brian Voelker told my colleague Noah Rosenstein that this would likely be the case when they talked after his departure this summer, even though the two programs had previously agreed to the game.

“I know we’re scheduled to play, the game has been on the schedule for the last 2 years. In all honesty I’m not sure it’s something that I wanna do. I told all the kids on the Penn team that I’m rooting for those guys, I wanna see them succeed and I wanna see them do well. It’d be a pretty tough thing for me to do to be on the opposite sideline playing against those guys. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re not playing each other. I told a couple of them that maybe if things work out maybe we could see each other in the playoffs. That would be something I think we could all feel good about it.

“I don’t think anything’s been signed. I would venture to guess that that game probably is not going to happen.”

Interestingly, though, the Quakers will travel to Denver - ground zero for the past offseason's coaching carousel - for the DU Face-off Classic, where they will take on the Pioneers along with Air Force. Long-time Princeton head coach Bill Tierney left the Tigers this summer after 22 seasons to take the reins at Denver. Princeton grabbed Drexel's Chris Bates, and then our West Philadelphia neighbors hired away Voelker. Penn finally ended the D-I coaching carousel by picking up Murphy from D-III Haverford (that pick stopped the motion altogether, as Haverford opted to hire its new head coach in-house).

The Quakers lost 10 seniors last year - including a number of key contributors -- but return many experienced players. They'll need strong play to get through that tough non-conference schedule and hopefully move through the stacked Ivy league to finish in the top four and make the Conference Tournament.