M. Lax readies to clip Hawks' wings

The Penn men's lacrosse team will be looking for its third consecutive victory today when it plays St. Joseph's at Franklin Field. The Quakers (5-4) defeated the Hawks 19-9 last year at St. Joe's, and, on paper, there is every indication that Penn will have the same success in tonight's game. St. Joe's currently sports a measly 3-7 overall record and lost to Lafayette earlier in the year, a team that Penn beat handily. St. Joe's does, however, have some strong players that Penn will need to contain. "They have some good attackmen with a lot of good numbers this year. We are going to key on them and play good all-around team defense," said Penn senior Kevin Cadin, who leads the team with 11 assists and 25 points. "We know if we move on the offense and play unselfishly we can generate good shots. That's what we've done against everybody else." This afternoon's match will be the first of four non-Ivy League games that Penn will play to conclude its season. The Quakers will need to win in order to have a shot at the NCAA playoffs. And although St. Joe's may not present much of a challenge to the Quakers, Penn will face tough competition in its final three games against Syracuse, Villanova and Delaware -- on April 21, 25 and 28, respectively. Penn lost to all three of these teams last year, although the game against Villanova went into double overtime, resulting in a 16-15 Penn loss. "We still feel like our destiny is in our own hands. If we have a good showing in each of our last games, we have a good shot at making the playoffs," Cadin said. "Each game is really important; if we lose any of these games we probably don't have a shot at the playoffs." Penn faces an uphill battle to make the playoffs, especially against No. 3 Syracuse. The Quakers lost to Syracuse 9-4 last year. However, it is already evident that this season is a marked improvement over last year for Penn. The Quakers, 1-5 in the Ivy League last season, finished 3-3 in the Ancient Eight this year. "We are more team oriented. Play is more unselfish this year than it has been in the past," Cadin said. "Different people stepped up for different games. It's that we can count on our teammates and that our goal is to win as a team and not necessarily to play well individually." Indeed, Cadin, Scott Solow, Alex Kopicki and Todd Minerley each have 11 goals this year. Penn concluded its Ivy League season against Brown last weekend with a 7-3 victory, after having defeated Dartmouth 7-4 the weekend before. This marks only the second time that the Quakers have finished with a .500 average in the Ivy League under Penn coach Marc van Arsdale. The first was in 1997, van Arsdale's first year at Penn. Whether Penn will be able to turn this year's late Ivy season success into an underdog playoff run has yet to be determined, but in order to head down that path it must prove itself tonight against St. Joseph's.

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