The Dartmouth Staff
After dominating the first three quarters, the Dartmouth men's lacrosse team looked like it would cruise to a fifth consecutive victory and keep its Ivy League record perfect with a win over Penn. Instead, the well-oiled machine that had been the Big Green for the first three quarters stalled out in the fourth. Dartmouth saw a 7-3 fourth quarter lead slowly evaporate and suffered its first Ivy League loss in a heartbreaking 8-7 upset to the Quakers.
The loss, though demoralizing, has little impact on Ivy League standings and will only hurt the No. 19 Big Green in terms of securing an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.
"Luckily we're still in the same spot we were before in terms of winning the Ivy League championship," co-captain Nick Bonacci '07 said. "If we win our next four games we've got it. Penn already has two league losses so we're in the same place we were before, but we've got to play better."
Dartmouth jumped out to an early 3-0 lead and held Penn (5-4, 2-2 Ivy) scoreless until nearly the midway point of the second quarter. The Big Green offense was well distributed, with five different players scoring goals. Brian Koch '09 and Ari Sussman '10 were the only Dartmouth players to score multiple goals with two each.
"I don't think Penn's defense did anything special," Bonacci said. "We were trying to shorten the game up a little bit and keep it low-scoring."
The Big Green outshot the Quakers 11-2 in the first quarter and 24-20 over the first three quarters.
The fourth quarter, however, was played almost entirely on Dartmouth's defensive half of the field, as Penn took 12 shots, four times as many as the Big Green's total of just three.
A factor that contributed to the fourth quarter shot totals and possession ratio was clearing and riding. Penn successfully cleared the ball to the offensive side of the field all seven times that their defense was able to make a stand in the fourth quarter. Dartmouth, on the other hand, only successfully cleared two of its five attempts and, as a result, played less offense.
"In between the lines and when we were clearing, we started rushing our passes more, and we weren't playing our slowdown game like we usually do," starting goalie Mike Novosel '10 said. "On offense we were trying to push it to the cage at times we shouldn't have been and also stalling at times that we probably shouldn't have been. All the little things added up and allowed Penn to score four or five goals on us to win."
With 10 minutes remaining in the game, the Big Green maintained a four-goal cushion. Behind a well-coordinated defense and 11 saves from Novosel, Dartmouth only conceded three goals to the Quakers over the first 50 minutes of play.
"As a whole, we got out on guys' hands really well and prevented them from getting quick shots and changed our slide packages to keep them from getting easy looks inside," Novosel said.
Over the next 10 minutes, however, Penn went on a 5-0 run to close the game, ultimately striking the last blow as Craig Andrzejewski beat Novosel with 27 seconds remaining. Andrzejewski was the bane of Dartmouth's trip to Philadelphia, as the Penn sophomore scored three unassisted goals in the fourth quarter.
"In the fourth quarter it was one stupid mistake followed by another, which got everyone down and brought our entire playing level down," Novosel said. "You can't relax in any game, even with a 7-3 lead in the fourth quarter, you can't relax."
Andrzejewski scored his first goal with 9:38 remaining in the final frame to make the score 7-4. Nearly four minutes passed before the next goal was scored and the floodgates were opened. In the final six minutes, Penn scored four goals, the final two by Andrzejewski, to give Dartmouth its second one-goal loss of the season.
For the Big Green, the loss snaps a four-game win streak and evens its overall record at 4-4 and its Ivy League record at 1-1.
Dartmouth has four league games remaining, including two against teams ranked in the top five in national polls.
The Big Green's next opponent, Cornell, is the nation's top team while Princeton is currently fifth.
Dartmouth faces out of conference opponents Virginia, Albany and Holy Cross. Virginia is currently No. 2 and Albany is No. 3 in the country.
"[Making the NCAA tournament] is going to take a couple wins over top five teams," Bonacci said. "We've got to win against two of the top five teams we play, and then we have to beat Harvard, Holy Cross and Yale. Either we can win the Ivy League by winning our next four [league] games or we can win five of seven to do it at large."
