With a 7-1 record entering Saturday's game against the Brown Bears, the men's lacrosse team was looking to earn its place among the Ivy elite.
But the Bears gave Dartmouth an education in lacrosse, and showed the Big Green they will have to wait a little while longer to be the best in the Ancient Eight.
Brown thrashed the Big Green 21-9, running them up and down the field. The Bears used a machine-like offense to score virtually at will, and their suffocating defense gave the Big Green laxers fits.
Dartmouth starting goalie Ned Hazard '96 was torched for 15 goals before being pulled with 5:40 left in the third quarter.
The Big Green never led, and the closest they were to the Bears was at 1-1 near the end of the first quarter.
After Brown All-American attackman David Evans opened the scoring, Tom Scott '96 pulled the Big Green even with 4:02 to go in the opening stanza.
But the Bears quickly struck back, and then Brown's Robin Prince added another tally with one second left in the first quarter.
Prince's goal was an ominous sign for the Big Green. For while Dartmouth only trailed 3-1 after the first quarter, the cagers were victimized by a disastrous second quarter.
Brown reeled off seven goals in the second stanza, three of them by Evans. The Big Green could manage only two goals in the second quarter, one by Eric Welsh '95 and the other by Scott Hapgood '97.
At the half, the Big Green trailed 10-3.
And if Dartmouth still had a flicker of hope at the half, Brown put the nails in the coffin with yet another offensive eruption in the third.
Brown blitzed Hazard and his replacement, David Kosloff '97, and when the smoke had cleared, six different Brown goalscorers had tallied a total of seven goals in the third stanza.
The Big Green did manage two goals in the third frame, by Tim Kennedy '96 and Brian Merritt '97, but after three, the scoreboard had Brown leading 17-5.
In the fourth the Dartmouth managed to play the Bears even--each team had four goals in the final frame.The Big Green had scores from Hapgood, co-Captain Todd Smith '95, Bill Tarr '98 and John Whelen '98. Brown also hit for four goals, to make the final score 21-9.
"Brown is in the top 10 ... they have a lot more depth than we do, and the way a team like Dartmouth is going to beat a team like Brown is with a lot of discipline," Hazard said. "We just didn't do that on Saturday"
The loss drops the Big Green to 7-2 overall and 2-2 in the Ivy League, while Brown improves to 7-4 overall and 4-1 in the Ivies.
"I think it was a disappointing loss for the team," Hazard said. "We came out and didn't really play a great game. We came out kind of flat"
In addition, the tough defeat effectively kills any hopes the Big Green were entertaining for an Ivy League title.
