Streaking M.Lax keeps rolling

After upsetting Notre Dame and obliterating an outmatched St. Joseph's squad, the No. 15-ranked Penn men's lacrosse team continued its early season accomplishments with victories against Bucknell and Lafayette.

Sloppy play against No. 20 Yale, however would not bring them similar results -- the Quakers fell, 11-5, to the Elis.

"We did some good things and some bad things over break," Penn junior attacker Scott Solow said. "But I can't say that I'm happy with our play when we have a loss."

Solow notched his second hat trick of the season against Bucknell in the Quakers' 7-5 victory. Alex Kopicki collected three assists, two of which led to Solow goals.

Ryan Kelly played all 60 minutes in goal against the Buffalos and collected nine saves.

Penn had little trouble dismantling Lafayette later in the week, winning, 15-7, in Easton, Pa., on March 12. Solow collected his third consecutive hat trick -- all three goals came in the second half.

"Against Lafayette we did a nice job offensively," sophomore midfielder Mike Iannacone said. "We scored on over 50 percent of our attempts, and that was something that coach had told us we needed to do."

Junior Jake Martin also added three goals for Penn.

But the victory was in doubt until the final minutes of the third quarter.

"We lost our focus in the middle two quarters, but we were able to come back in the fourth," Iannacone said.

Triggered by Solow's second and third goals of the game at the end of the third quarter, Penn unleashed seven unanswered scores to close out the game.

"We were in the driver's seat the whole game," Penn freshman Alexander Reich said. "In the end we just made smarter decisions, and once we got a couple of goals to go, we really started to flow."

In the final quarter of play, the Penn defense shut down the Leopards' production -- Lafayette managed to shoot only eight shots on goal in the final quarter, none of which hit the target.

Ryan Kelly again played the entire game, collecting 10 saves in the victory.

"Ryan Kelly has been playing exceptionally in net," Iannacone said. "[He] is always back there to help us out as the last line of defense if the defense makes a mistake."

Yale capitalized on these Penn mistakes in the Elis' 11-5 victory on Saturday.

"It was a combination of us making mistakes and them playing well," Solow said. "I feel that that if we make mistakes against a good team we're going to lose."

After beginning the game down, 4-1, senior captain Alex Kopicki and Reich narrowed the margin to one entering the half. But that would be the closest Penn got for the rest of the game.

"We didn't execute a lot of things that we wanted to do," Iannacone said. "Our middies got off the field too quickly and gave up on the ball too fast. We had problems with the transition game and getting back."

Despite the loss, senior captain Alex Kopicki collected his first multiple-goal game of the season with a hat trick.

"He was a constant for us throughout the break," Reich said. "Even when the game was over against Yale, he was out there busting his butt for the entire time."

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