M. Lax mauled by Tigers

"This game is like David versus Goliath." Those words, uttered by a fan in the third quarter of last night's Penn men's lacrosse game, could not have been more true - with the exception that it was Goliath, and not David, who walked away the winner. Princeton, the Goliath of Ivy League men's lacrosse - currently ranked No. 2 in the nation - gave Penn a 19-8 whooping on Franklin Field last night. It was the Tigers' 11th straight victory over Penn - a streak that dates back to 1989 - and 33rd consecutive Ivy League win for the team from Old Nassau. "The team effort just wasn't there today," Penn midfielder Alex Kopicki said. Princeton caught fire early on in the first quarter, and within the first five minutes of play, the Tigers were up by five. By the time Sonny Sarker put Penn on the scoreboard at the 4:53 mark, Princeton was holding on to a commanding seven-point lead. Sarker sunk another goal with two minutes left, leaving the Quakers trailing by five at the end of the first quarter. "Our strategy was to possess the ball for a good portion of the game. But it's hard when you're down," Penn coach Marc Van Arsdale said. "Princeton has so many weapons to use against us. And they were on fire today." As for the rest of the game, it can be summed up in four words: Princeton scored a lot. The Tigers completely dominated the Quakers, scoring six goals in the second quarter and five in the third. Princeton's Sean Hartofilis had a huge night, scoring four for the Tigers, while almost every member of the Princeton starting offense scored at least once. "Last game against Yale we didn't have a very good start, so we knew we had to [come out strong] this game," Princeton coach Bill Tierney said. "However, I have never seen a Princeton team shoot as well as we did tonight. Something just clicked." The fourth quarter proved to be the eye of the storm for Penn. The Quakers scoring three consecutive goals in the final 10 minutes of play with no Princeton response. However, those goals only saved face for the Red and the Blue in what proved to be a spirited ending to an otherwise crushing defeat. "We got the ball early but we fell apart from there. They beat us on the ground balls and face offs," Kopicki said. "Like coach said in the locker room, at the end we forgot about the scoreboard. We just concentrated on playing hard. When you play hard things go your way." The outcome of the game was a disappointment for the Quakers, who had hoped to make up for their overtime loss to Cornell last Saturday with a strong game against Princeton. "Our strategy this season has been `Win the next one,'" Kopicki said. "This year we have been able to rebound from tough losses. We lost to Yale but came back to beat Harvard." Unfortunately for Penn, the Quakers were unable to find the same vigor yesterday to rebound from the Cornell defeat as they had after losing to Yale. "Lacrosse is a game of runs - if you get down a couple you don't get discouraged," Kopicki said. "But we never had our spurt. We had no intensity today."

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