M. Lax 'hands over' two winnable games

A three-game road set during spring break left the men's lacrosse team clamoring for some home cooking.

As expected, the Quakers had no problem dispatching Robert Morris on March 3. Goals came easy for Penn as it steamrolled the Colonials, 13-5.

The onslaught was led by sophomores Casey O'Rourke and Craig Andrzejewski. O'Rourke had two goals and two assists while his fellow attacker picked up a hat trick.

"It wasn't the most glamorous place to go, playing in the snow in Pittsburgh," said Penn coach Brian Voelker. "But we did what we had to do."

Everything went downhill from there, though.

Facing two stronger teams in Bucknell and UMBC, the Red and Blue made some mental mistakes and faltered when it mattered. That kept them from winning either matchup.

First up was a March 6 trip to Bison country, where the Quakers lost to then-No. 17 Bucknell, 9-6.

It looked like Penn wasn't ready to play, at least not when the clock started running. The Quakers' mental lapses earned them two early penalties. Bucknell (5-0) took advantage and went up 5-0 after the opening period.

"We started to rush things on offense," Andrzejewski said. "The penalties were game-changers; we had a letdown in the first period."

Once Penn survived that opening period, it settled down somewhat. After conceding four more goals and going down 9-0, the Quakers fired back with six straight goals. Senior attacker Alex Salihi keyed the comeback attempt with two goals and two assists.

"I give our kids a lot of credit; we really outplayed them for three quarters," Voelker said. "But when you dig yourself an early five-goal hole, it's not easy to come back. And to be honest, we probably didn't deserve to win after that first quarter."

In the beginning of the Quakers' March 10 faceoff with UMBC (3-2), it looked as if Penn had shaken off its loss to Bucknell.

The Red and Blue took a 5-2 lead late into the second quarter before the game started to slip away, eventually turning into an nailbiter that UMBC won 11-10 in double-overtime.

"We gave them a couple easy goals to get back into it," senior captain David Cornbrooks said. "They came back from halftime, scored a couple straight and all of the sudden we found ourselves down."

"When we made mistakes, they were big ones," Voelker said. "They made smaller mistakes and were able to capitalize on ours."

Again, the Quakers had to claw back late in the game. A wild fourth quarter saw six total goals, four of them by a Penn team desperate to force overtime. The game did go to extra frames, where Cornbrooks said the team felt good since "all the momentum was in our favor."

But the Quakers could not maintain that momentum as UMBC scored late in the second overtime period to win.

"It's frustrating to lose two games where I felt we weren't really outplayed so much as we handed the games over," Voelker concluded.

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