NCAA Rewind: A Transition Year for Penn's Offense

Before USA Lacrosse Magazine looks ahead to what’s to come in 2025 — look out for our NCAA Way-Too-Early Top 25 rankings later this summer — our team of staff and contributors decided it was worth taking a last look at the 2024 college lacrosse season.

To do that, we’re taking a journey through 30 of the top teams in men’s and women’s lacrosse to see what went right, what went wrong and how we should feel about the season.

PENN

USA Lacrosse preseason/final ranking: No. 17/No. 12
2024 record: 9-6 (4-2 Ivy League)

What went right: Brendan Lavelle was one of the nation’s top defensemen and rose to the occasion for especially tough matchups, stymieing both Duke’s Brennan O’Neill and Cornell’s CJ Kirst. 

Emmet Carroll was excellent in the cage, stopping 59.4 percent of the shots on goal he faced. Cam Rubin scored a team-best 31 goals, and had six-goal outings in defeats of Cornell and Harvard. 

The Quakers advanced to the Ivy League title game, staying in the NCAA tournament mix until the final day of the season.

What went wrong: Manufacturing offense wasn’t always easy for Penn, which surpassed the 11-goal plateau just three times (with two of them coming in victories at Duke and Cornell). Possession played a part in the Quakers’ woes, with a .461 faceoff percentage ranking 57th out of 76 Division I teams. 

And while Penn could have earned an NCAA berth with a defeat of Princeton in the Ivy League final, it also would have been the beneficiary had either Johns Hopkins or Penn State derailed Michigan in the Big Ten tournament. The Wolverines’ run cost the Quakers the last at-large spot.

Season highlight: You can always count on the Quakers to play a tough non-conference schedule and then pick off a notable name. So it came to pass on March 1, when Penn turned back Duke 14-12 in a driving rainstorm behind Lavelle’s stellar play and three goals each from Luke DiNola and Ben Smith.

Verdict: It was no surprise this was a bit of a transition year for the Quakers’ offense after Sam Handley’s graduation, and Penn went against type in the Ivy League this year with greater strength at the defensive end. 

Mike Murphy’s team was right in the mix for a postseason slot and slightly improved its record (from 7-6) year over year. It was a creditable showing, even if Penn didn’t play beyond the first weekend of May.