Hanover
Dartmouth is 1-12 overall and 0-5 in league play. A loss at No. 1 Brown on Wednesday night would result in the program’s second winless Ivy season during the last three years and its 16th such record since the circuit first sanctioned the sport in 1956. The Big Green is 4-31 in Ivy games the past six years and has suffered seven seasons with one or no league victories during the past nine years.
Unlike some Dartmouth games this season, the team statistics were mostly even. The squads each had 36 shots and Dartmouth held the edge in faceoffs, 10-9. The Big Green successfully cleared on 13 of 17 attempts and Penn was scoreless during two man-up chances and Dartmouth without a goal during three such opportunities.
If there was one notation on the stat sheet that stood out, it was the 17 saves by Quakers goaltender Reed Junkin, a freshman from Belmont Hill prep school in suburban Boston. Dartmouth also didn’t do itself any favors by often shooting too quickly or failing to aim low while releasing high or vice versa.
“The difference in the game was in our finishing,” second-year coach Brendan Callahan said. “When you put 20-plus shots on goal, you expect to score more often, but their goalie was good.”
Said Dartmouth’s Richie Loftus: “He shadowed our sticks and he got big in the cage by coming out on us. We needed to move him but we hit his body a lot today.”
Dartmouth’s defense, which allowed only seven goals during a loss at Princeton last weekend, has shown recent signs of improvement. The unit was under pressure for so long on Saturday, however, that it inevitably broke down. The Quakers also put on a clinic in rapid-ball movement, snapping off passes in succession and displaying the type of purposeful, second-nature attack that the Big Green can only envy.
“Some light bulbs have gone on for us recently,” Callahan said. “After that Cornell game (a 19-4 home loss) we took a look at some things and (the defense) started to pick up.”
Penn (8-5, 4-2) scored on its first two shots of the game for a 2-0 lead. A 2-2 tie gave way to a 4-2 Quakers lead at halftime. The third quarter, however, has been a quagmire for Dartmouth and it trailed, 7-3, after that stanza. The Big Green has been outscored, 50-22, during third quarters this spring.
Pat Berkery, Kevin Gayhardt, Simon Mathias and Reilly Hupfeldt scored two goals apiece for the Quakers.
“It’s a point of emphasis for us but we get that little bit of down time at halftime and then we have to crank ourselves up the same way we were at the start of the game,” Callahan said. “It’s not great technical adjustments by the other team, it’s a mentality on our part. We’ve earned the right for teams to come out and play us hard in the third quarter, but now we have to raise our game to that level, too.”
Joe Balaban, Dartmouth’s freshman, walk-on goaltender, started his sixth consecutive game and made 10 saves. Loftus was the hosts’ top scorer, tallying twice, along with single strikes from Jack Korzelius and Harrison Lane. Dartmouth has scored six or fewer goals six times this season.
“I think it has to do with confidence in our shooting,” Callahan said. “We’ve been generating shots, but we haven’t been putting them in the net. Sometimes it seems like we’re surprised when we have opportunities.”
Penn capitalized on several fast-break chances on which its point man drove directly to the Dartmouth goal. It seemed at times as though the Big Green was content to sit back and allow such charges, but Callahan said it was a bit more complex.
“They spread their attackmen out very wide,” he said. “You can come in tight and stop the ball with a defensive midfielder or a pole, but then they kick it wide and have their attackmen go 1-on-1.
“If you can’t match up with them athlete-for-athlete, you’re in a bind and they made some good plays that way today. That’s the way we’d like to be, one step ahead of the defense.”
Dartmouth is certainly behind the eight-ball by competing in what might be the country’s toughest men’s lacrosse league. Nonetheless, Loftus said he’s optimistic a program that Laxpower.com’s Division I computer rankings place 67th out of 69 teams can turn things around.
“I enjoy the grind,” he said. “We’ve had a great group of seniors who have led the way to creating a better culture. If you look at our shot count and how hard we’re working and how well we play during the first and second periods, we’re playing with all the top teams.”
Dartmouth’s record in one-goal games the last two years is 4-2. Now, if it could only get into more of them.
“I don’t think there’s a huge gap in talent between us and other teams,” Loftus said. “You can get used to winning and you can get used to losing. We have to break that barrier and play like we’re champions no matter whether we’re wining or losing.”
Notes: Callahan said senior defenseman Austin Duncan, a former starter whose last game was against Yale earlier this month, was recently dismissed from the program for a rules violation. … The Quakers hold a 42-27 advantage in the teams’ series and have won four in a row, five of the last six meetings, and nine of the last 11. … Laxpower ranks Dartmouth’s strength of schedule 46th among Division I teams. The next closest Ivy member is Yale at No. 33. … Navy, coached by onetime Dartmouth bench boss Rick Sowell, entered the weekend 10-3. … Dartmouth won the 1965 Ivy title, but was 5-55 in league play the next 10 years. Another significant down period was a 3-51 stretch in Ivy competition from 1985-93. … Former Dartmouth head coach Andy Towers and Ryan Danehy, his former assistant and a onetime Big Green lacrosse and football player, co-host a weekly college lacrosse podcast on laxallstars.com. Towers on the recent firing of former Dartmouth player and Princeton coach Chris Bates for on-field contact with an opponent: “Princeton copped out. You’ve got to look at Chris Bates’ total body of work. Only the extreme buttoned-up losers felt that he should be fired immediately.”
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com or 603-727-3227.