M. Lax wants to return a very unpleasant favor

David Cornbrooks wants his ring back.

It's the one he should have had last year.

A little less than a month into its season, the Penn lacrosse team is off to a fast start, with an early leg up in the Ivy League standings and a weak Harvard team looming just ahead.

But if this seems familiar to anyone on the team, it's because that's exactly where the Quakers stood a year ago before taking on unranked Harvard.

Then-undefeated Penn's loss to the then-2-2 Crimson would eventually prove to be a decisive game in the Quakers' season when they missed a share of the Ivy crown by one game.

So when the Quakers (4-2, 1-0 Ivy) head to Boston tomorrow to take on Harvard (0-4, 0-0) once again, they'll be looking for revenge.

"For the guys who were here last year, it's definitely a motivation," said the senior midfielder Cornbrooks. "They basically took a ring away from us."

On paper, this year's Harvard squad should be easier to handle than last year's. It currently stands at 0-4 in the Ivy League, with the worst overall record by far.

The Crimson's offense relies on sophomore midfielder Max Motschwiller, who leads the team with eight points. Three other players have six points each.

Meanwhile, the Quakers' top scorer, sophomore attacker Craig Andrzejewski, has 25 points in only two more games.

But nobody is ready to overlook what the Crimson are capable of.

"Offensively, they have some very talented guys," said Cornbrooks. "They have some guys who are pretty aggressive."

Coach Brian Voelker agrees.

"They're very athletic. They have a lot of firepower on the offensive end," he said.

But Harvard's defense hasn't helped its cause so far this year. The starting goaltender, sophomore Joe Pike, sports a save percentage of .393, lowest in the league.

The only significant area where Harvard has an advantage over the Quakers is in faceoffs, where the Crimson's .624 percentage is second in the Ivies, though not too far above Penn's .538 mark.

So with nearly all of the numbers on their side, the Quakers have to be confident about their chances to avoid their fate from last year.

"Do you worry about your guys overlooking these guys? No, I don't think so," said Voelker.

Especially not after the Crimson squeaked into last year's NCAA Tournament at an at-large bid - at the time, the Quakers actually thought that they might have had their bid stolen from them.

Cornbrooks hasn't forgotten.

"Their record doesn't necessarily indicate how good they are," he said.

If the Quakers have learned one thing from the near miss of last year's title run, it's that one game can easily derail a season.

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