PHILADELPHIA – Following a dramatic overtime win against city rival Saint Joseph's on Tuesday night, the 12th-ranked University of Pennsylvania men's lacrosse team concludes the regular season on Saturday with a trip to the University at Albany. The Quakers and Great Danes are scheduled to face off at noon.
 
#12/13 PENN (7-4) at UALBANY (5-8)
Saturday, April 30, 2022 | Noon
Bob Ford Field at Casey Stadium | Albany, N.Y.
Watch on ESPN+ ($) | Live Stats | Tickets
 
The Penn-UAlbany Series
*This is the first meeting between the Quakers and the Great Danes in men's lacrosse.
 
*Overall, Penn has played 13 games against teams currently in the America East Conference..
  7-2 against UMBC (most recent an 8-7 win at UMBC on April 19, 2016)
  3-0 against Stony Brook (most recent a 19-14 win at home on May 4, 1991)
  1-0 against Vermont (12-10 win on April 27, 2019 in a neutral-site affair in Wilton, Conn.)
 
The Ivy League situation
*Only seven teams play Ivy League men's lacrosse—Columbia does not field a team—so Penn has the final bye this weekend while the other six are in action against each other (Cornell at Princeton, noon; Dartmouth at Brown, 1 p.m.; Harvard at Yale, 2 p.m.).
 
*With five teams tied at 3-2 entering the day, and Penn at 3-3, the Quakers still have a shot at making the Ivy League Tournament. (At 0-5, Dartmouth is the only team eliminated at this point.)
 
*So what does Penn need? Primarily, Princeton to beat Cornell. If the Tigers win, the Quakers are in as the #4 seed and only need to concern themselves with the results of the other games because those would determine where the ILT will be held (top seed hosts). IF PRINCETON WINS AND…
   - Harvard beats Yale, the tournament is at Harvard
   - Yale beats Harvard and Brown beats Dartmouth, the tournament is at Princeton
   - Yale beats Harvard and Dartmouth beats Brown, the tournament is at Yale

*There is one scenario where Penn makes the ILT if Cornell beats Princeton. If that happens, Yale would need to beat Harvard and Brown would need to beat Dartmouth. In that case, Brown is top seed and host; Cornell is second seed; Yale is third seed; and Penn is fourth seed.
 
*The ILT semifinals will take place next Friday at 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., with the final slated for Sunday at noon. All three games will be televised live on ESPNU.
 
Penn Men's Lacrosse by the Numbers
1 * Non-conference games left among the Ivy teams: Penn's game at UAlbany. After getting three wins on Tuesday night—Penn over Saint Joseph's, Brown over Bryant, Yale over Quinnipiac—the Ivy League is 38-10 against non-conference foes this season.
 
1 * Games this season in which senior Dylan Gergar has not scored multiple goals (he had one against Cornell on March 26); Gergar scored twice on Tuesday after going for six last Saturday at Dartmouth.
 
2 * The number of leads Penn had in Tuesday's win over Saint Joseph's: 1-0 and 13-12. So yes, the Quakers' only leads came on the first and last goals of the night.
 
2 * Penn players who were named Inside Lacrosse Midseason All-America: senior middie Sam Handley (first-team All-America) and sophomore defenseman Brendan Lavelle (third-team All-America).
 
2 * Goals scored by freshman Tynan Walsh on Tuesday night; that matched his total for the season entering the game (1 against Duke, 1 at Dartmouth).
 
3 * Goals scored by Penn in the final seconds of games already this season. Shipley tied the Duke game with two seconds left, then a week later won the Penn State game with one second left. A week after that, Gergar scored at Villanova with one second left to give the Quakers an 8-7 win over the Wildcats. (For good measure, Gergar scored with just one second on the clock to end the first quarter against Brown on April 9.)
 
3.00 * Assists per game dished out by Handley in Penn's six Ivy League contests, tops among Ivy players.
 
4 * Overtime games this season for Penn, which is 2-2 in those games: a 14-13 win over Duke on February 26; a 21-20 loss at Princeton on March 19 to open Ivy League play; a 12-11 loss at Yale on April 2; and Tuesday's 13-12 win over Saint Joseph's.
 
4 * Ivy League players who were named to the list of 25 Tewaaraton Award finalists. The group includes Handley.
 
4 * Penn players who have earned spots on the USILA Division I Team of the Week already this season: Gergar on March 1, Lavelle on March 15, Handley on March 22, and face-off specialist Jamie Zusi on April 25.
 
4 * Consecutive games in which junior Gabe Furey has recorded multiple points (2 each against Brown, Harvard and Dartmouth, 5 vs. SJU); prior to that, he only accomplished the feat twice in Penn's first seven contests.
 
5 * Penn's national Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) as of Monday. As a sign of how strong the Ivy League is this year, six of this week's top 11 RPIs are held by Ancient Eight teams (Princeton 2, Yale 4, Brown 8, Cornell 9, Harvard 11).
 
5 * Goals scored over the last two games by freshman Ben Smith (2 at Dartmouth, 3 vs. Saint Joseph's); prior to last weekend's trip to Hanover, he had two for the season.
 
5.83 * Points per game recorded by Handley in Ivy play this season, tops among Ivy players.
 
6 * Ivy League teams in this week's USILA Top 20: Princeton (5), Yale (6), Brown (10), Penn (12), Cornell (13) and Harvard (15).
 
8 * Assists by Handley against Princeton on March 19, one shy of the single-game program record held since 1969 by Richard Bennett (set against Drexel).
 
8.67 * Penn's assists-per-game average in Ivy League play, tops among the Ancient Eight programs; the Quakers have 52 assists in 83 goals in Ivy play, a 62.7-percent ratio.
 
12 * For the second straight week, Penn's ranking in this week's USILA national coaches' poll.
 
13 * For the second straight week, Penn's ranking in this week's Inside Lacrosse media poll.
 
13.89 * Average saves per game by senior goalie Patrick Burkinshaw entering the week, tops among Ivy goalies and sixth nationally; he had eight stops Tuesday night.
 
14:03 * Amount of game time needed by Furey to record all of his team-high five points (3g/2a) in Tuesday's win over Saint Joseph's; he scored his first goal with 2:24 left in the third (making the score 9-5 Hawks), and his final goal came with 3:21 left in the fourth (making it 12-11 Hawks).
 
15 * Players who have scored this season for Penn, led by Gergar who has 35 tallies. Handley has 25, Rubin has 18, and Shipley has 14. (Peter Blake became the Quakers' 15th scorer this season when he converted a 70-yard shot to break Harvard's 10-man ride on April 16.)
 
20 * Saves made by Burkinshaw against Harvard on April 16, a career high. He had a staggering .714 save percentage in the contest and was named the Ivy League Player of the Week that Monday.
 
48.2 * Face-off win percentage by Zusi against Saint Joseph's on Tuesday; doesn't seem so great, until you realize he went toe-to-toe with the nation's faceoff leader, Zach Cole, who entered the game with an incredible 73.3 win percentage for the season.
 
55.1 * Save percentage by Burkinshaw in Ivy play, tops among Ivy goalies.
 
56.0 * Penn's scoring percentage in man-up situations in Ivy League play (14-of-25); the Quakers averaged 2.33 EMO goals per game in league play, tops among Ancient Eight programs.