Dartmouth beats M. Lax for first Ivy win since 1988

Hanover, N.H., may be a nice place to live, but it's certainly not a nice place to visit -- just ask the Penn men's lacrosse team. The home of Dartmouth College may be cozy and quaint, but it's a seven-and-a-half hour drive from Philadelphia. The trek is always grueling, but the ride home is especially painful if you're on the losing end of the Big Green's first Ivy win since 1988. On Sunday afternoon, Penn fell to Dartmouth in the Big Green's first Ivy game of the season. The contest was tied 5-5 at the half, but the Quakers (4-4, 1-3 Ivy League) faltered in the third quarter and lost by a 12-8 score. The Big Green was riding a three-game winning streak and its only loss of the season was a 21-9 defeat at fifth-ranked North Carolina. Penn, which was coming off a 19-7 loss at the hands of Princeton, was hampered by a poor performance on the offensive end of the field. "Offensively, we were pitiful," Penn coach G.W. Mix said. "We were absolutely atrocious -- there's no other way to describe it." Simple tasks, like passing and catching, became difficult for the Quakers to execute. They were plagued with penalties which also stunted their attack. "We never got settled down," sophomore attacker Andy Crofton said. "We struggled offensively and we just didn't click." "We were just not doing the fundamental things properly," Mix said. On the defensive end, Penn wasn't able to subdue Dartmouth's top attackers. Sophomore Tom Scott tallied three goals and one assist, while senior Brendan Bowler added two goals and one assist. Freshman Brian Merritt was named Ivy League Rookie of the Week for his strong performance for the Big Green at midfield last weekend. The Quakers got off to a slow start in the first quarter, but responded with four straight goals to open the second stanza. Four different men for Penn scored during the barrage and Crofton assisted on two of these goals. The Big Green scored twice at the end of the second half and it opened the third quarter with two more goals. The two teams traded goals for the rest of the period, as the Quakers tried to remain afloat behind the solid goaltending of sophomore Steve Bassford. But inspired play and four straight goals sealed Dartmouth's first Ivy victory in six years. "In the third quarter they just outplayed us completely," Mix said. "That was the difference in the game. They outplayed us and they outhustled us -- that's what we're most disappointed with." The long bus ride home from Hanover gave the Penn squad plenty of time to ponder its defeat to the Big Green. However, the Quakers will have to put their recent losses behind them if they hope to be victorious in their upcoming games.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.