PRINCETON, N.J. – Playing its first Ivy League game in 1,064 days, the sixth-ranked University of Pennsylvania men's lacrosse team engaged in an epic battle with rival Princeton on Saturday at the Tigers' Sherrerd Field. When the dust had settled on a game that was high-paced from start to finish, Princeton Chris Brown was going low-to-high off a Coulter Mackesy feed and giving the No. 4-ranked hosts a 21-20 overtime win.
Penn fell to 3-2 on the young season, while Princeton is now 5-1.
Quaker Notemeal
*This was the highest-scoring Ivy League game in program history and it marked the first time both teams reached 20 goals in a game in program history.
*In fact, this was just the eighth time Penn has scored 20 goals against an Ivy opponent (3 times vs. Dartmouth, 2 vs. Brown, 2 vs. Princeton, 1 vs. Harvard).
*After a seven-goal first quarter, the teams combined for 12 goals in the second (6-6) and 13 in the third (Penn 8-5).
*Penn made up a six-goal deficit (9-3) and didn't take its first lead until 16-15 in a game that featured five ties in the final 17:40 of regulation (15-15, 16-16, 17-17, 19-19, 20-20).
*Penn went a perfect 5-of-5 on extra-man offense Saturday and also scored a man-down goal in the game.
*On a day when a staggering 40 faceoffs were taken, Penn won 21-19 with
Jamie Zusi going 15-of-30 and
Chris Arceri going 6-of-10.
*
Cam Rubin, who entered today's game with five points on the season, scored a career-high seven goals on Saturday. He also had two assists for nine points.
*
Sam Handley entered the day with 12 points on the season but he collected 11 against the Tigers. That included eight assists, just one shy of the program record set by Richard Bennett against Drexel in 1969.
*
Dylan Gergar had another solid offensive performance, scoring twice and dishing out three assists for five points. He has at least two points in every game so far this season.
*Junior
Gabe Furey had his first multi-goal game for Penn, scoring twice on Saturday.
*Penn's other goals were scored by
Jack Schultz,
Ben Bedard,
James Shipley,
Ben Smith,
Piper Bond and
Kaleb Fernandez. Smith's goal was his second this season, while Bond, Fernandez and Bedard all scored for the first time this season.
*
Patrick Burkinshaw started in goal and went three quarters before giving way to
Emmet Carroll. Burkinshaw had nine saves on the day while Carroll made five.
How It Happened
The Tigers scored twice in the game's first 1:01 and added a third tally to go up 3-0 before Saturday's game was four minutes old. That forced Penn head coach
Mike Murphy to take a timeout.
The Quakers settled down, and finally got on the board when
Cam Rubin took a feed from
Sam Handley near the top and fired a shot past Princeton keeper Erik Peters in a man-up situation with 7:57 left. A little more than two minutes after that,
Ben Bedard got the Quakers within one when he fired across his body running across the top of the goal. However, the host Tigers got both of those back and took a 5-2 lead after one.
Dylan Gergar sniped home a goal in the first minute of the second, but the next several minutes were all Princeton as the Tigers scored three in a row over a span of 1:47—the second and third in that run coming just 11 seconds apart—to go up 8-3 and force another Quakers timeout.
Princeton scored again out of the break to make it 9-3, but Penn responded after that. Handley started things with an unassisted goal, then he fed Gergar for a man-up goal 43 seconds later and tallied his own extra-man goal just 28 seconds after that. Suddenly, the Tigers' lead was just 9-6. Princeton got one of those goals back, but the hosts were penalized after the score and
Kaleb Fernandez made it a perfect 4-for-4 for Penn's EMO off a feed from Rubin to make the score 10-7. Both teams then scored in the final minute—Rubin's second goal of the day coming with just four seconds left on the clock—and the teams went to the locker room with Princeton holding an 11-8 lead.
The third quarter started slow but picked up steam quickly. Nearly four minutes went by before Rubin scored to make the score 11-9, and then just 23 seconds later he finished a Bedard feed to get Penn within a goal. Princeton needed 13 seconds to get one of the goals back, then 36 more seconds to re-establish its three-goal lead.
Piper Bond scored his first of the season for 13-11, a goal answered by Princeton, and then another Tigers tally on extra-man offense was canceled out by a man-down goal by Rubin. That set Penn off on a five-goal run covering less than three minutes of game time, and when Rubin finished a Handley feed the Quakers had their first lead of the day at 16-15. Princeton's Alexander Vardaro scored in the final minute of the quarter, and the teams were level after three, 16-16.
Jack Schultz scored off a Gergar feed just 13 seconds into the fourth, but Princeton drew back level a minute later and then took the lead with two more over a 26-second span. There was a rare drought by both teams, covering 4:29 of game time, before Rubin and then
Gabe Furey scored to make the score 19-19 with 6:40 left.
The drama built as the clock ticked down and both teams searched for the lead goal, and it was Princeton who finally scored as Brown netted an unassisted goal with 2:06 to play. However, Penn had one final answer, freshman
Ben Smith finishing a Gergar feed with 1:34 to play. The Quakers then won the ensuing faceoff and held the ball for a final shot, but Shipley's effort just before the buzzer was saved by Peters and the teams went to overtime.
Princeton won the faceoff to start the OT, and with the shot clock near expiration the Tigers caught a break when a shot that appeared to be wide was ticked by Penn goalie
Emmet Carroll. That reset the shot clock, and given a second bite at the apple Brown cashed in to give the hosts the victory and end a scintillating game that felt more like May than March.
Up Next
Penn is back in Ivy League action next Saturday, hosting Cornell at Franklin Field. The third-ranked Big Red opened Ivy play with a one-goal win over No. 11 Yale on Saturday. First faceoff between the Quakers and Big Red is scheduled for 1 p.m.
#ILPL
#FightOnPenn
