2023 Men's Top 30: How Penn Fared vs. Projections

Before USA Lacrosse Magazine looks ahead to what’s to come in 2024, our team of staff and contributors decided it was worth taking one last look at 2023.

After all, you have to look at the most recent results before making projections for what’s to come. To do that, we’re taking a journey through the top 30 teams in men’s and women’s lacrosse — what went right, what went wrong and what we should all think of that team’s season.

Was it a success? A failure? A mixture of both? You’ll find out our thoughts over the next month or so.

PENN MEN’S LACROSSE

Nike/USA Lacrosse Preseason/Final Top 20 Ranking: 9/13
2023 record: 7-6 (4-2 Ivy)

WHAT WENT RIGHT

The Quakers checked the quality wins box early, picking off Georgetown in their opener and both Princeton and Yale in the first half of Ivy League play. Midfielder Sam Handley wasn’t quite the statistical dynamo he was as a junior, but he still had 30 goals and 25 assists while commanding maximum attention. Despite an uneven season, Penn still had a shot at an NCAA bid entering the Ivy tournament.

WHAT WENT WRONG

Attackman Dylan Gergar’s injury four games into the season was one of the most costly in all of Division I, taking away the Quakers’ biggest non-Handley threat. A loss at Brown on April 8 damaged Penn’s at-large hopes, but a 9-8 loss to Princeton in a riveting Ivy semifinal left the Quakers wobbling — and vulnerable to getting bumped from the field when Michigan won the Big Ten and Princeton claimed the Ivy over the next couple days.

SEASON HIGHLIGHT

Unsurprisingly, Penn played a bunch of close games (again). Handley scored overtime winners against Saint Joseph’s and Princeton in March, and Tynan Walsh’s goal with 1:17 left in regulation was the difference in a 17-16 defeat of Yale on April 1.

VERDICT

After reaching the quarterfinals in its previous two full seasons (2019 and 2022), Penn had hopes of making it to Memorial Day for the first time since 1988 — and doing so in Philadelphia. There must be some disappointment, but frustration is probably the better word to attach to the Quakers, whose ceiling wasn’t quite so high after Gergar was lost for the year.