PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania men's lacrosse team has hit a hot streak at just the right time, riding that momentum through a pair of wins at the Ivy League Tournament last weekend. That has the Quakers holding a 3 seed in this year's NCAA Championship, tied for the highest in program history. Penn will host unseeded Richmond on Saturday afternoon in a first-round matchup.
 
Please note Saturday's game will be played on Dunning-Cohen Champions Field in Penn Park, as the Quakers' normal home venue (Franklin Field) is offline due to Commencement ceremonies throughout the weekend.
 
The winner of Saturday's game will face the winner of sixth-seeded Rutgers and unseeded Harvard in a quarterfinal on Saturday, May 21 at Hofstra's James M. Shuart Stadium in Hempstead, N.Y. The Scarlet Knights host the Crimson on Sunday at 2:30 p.m.
 
#3 PENN (10-4) vs. RICHMOND (11-4)
NCAA Championship first round
Saturday, May 14, 2022 | 2:30 p.m.
Dunning-Cohen Champions Field (Penn Park) | Philadelphia
Watch on ESPNU ($) | Live Stats | Tickets
 
The Penn-Richmond Series
*The Quakers and Spiders are meeting for the first time in men's lacrosse.
 
*In fact, Penn has not ever played any of the programs that currently constitute the Southern Conference (SoCon for short) in men's lacrosse. Those programs are Hampton, High Point, Jacksonville, Mercer, and VMI.
 
Penn in the NCAA Championship
*The Quakers are making their 14th appearance in the NCAA postseason event and are hosting a first-round game for just the seventh time overall.
 
*Penn's 3 seed is tied for the highest in program history; the Quakers also were the 3 seed in 1984, when the NCAA held an eight-team championship. Penn hosted and lost to sixth-seeded Army in the first round, 8-7.
 
*Overall, Penn is 3-3 in home NCAA Championship games with the wins coming in 1987, 1988 and 2019.
 
*This is Penn's fourth NCAA appearance under current head coach Mike Murphy and the third first-round home game, the others coming in 2014 (a 16-11 loss to Drexel) and 2019 (a 13-8 win over Army).
 
All-America Honors Start Rolling In
USA Lacrosse Magazine named its 2022 All-America teams on Tuesday afternoon, and Penn was well-represented as senior Sam Handley earned first-team honors while senior Dylan Gergar and sophomore Brendan Lavelle earned honorable mention recognition.
 
Penn Men's Lacrosse by the Numbers
.796 • The Ivy League's win percentage this season against non-conference foes (39-10); Penn did its part, going 5-1 including wins over current No. 9 Duke and No. 19 Saint Joseph's. the lone loss came by two goals against current No. 2 Georgetown in the season opener, Penn's first game against a Division 1 opponent in 713 days.
 
1 • Games this season in which senior Dylan Gergar has not scored multiple goals (he had one against Cornell on March 26); he had nine last weekend, five vs. Brown and four vs. Yale.
 
2 • Ivy League Tournament records set by senior goalie Patrick Burkinshaw last weekend: saves in a game (20 vs. Brown) and saves in a tournament (36); his save percentage across the weekend was .667, and on Tuesday he was named USA Lacrosse Magazine's Division I Player of the Week.
 
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).
 
3 • Goals scored by Penn in the final seconds of games already this season. James 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 • Penn's ranking in this week's USILA and Inside Lacrosse national polls.
 
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 • Penn players who have earned spots on the USILA Division I Team of the Week this season: Gergar on March 1, Lavelle on March 15, Handley on March 22, and face-off specialist Jamie Zusi on April 25.
 
4 • Ivy League players who were named to the list of 25 Tewaaraton Award semifinalists; that group includes Handley.
 
5 • Ivy League teams seeded and playing home games this weekend (#3 Penn, #4 Yale, #5 Princeton, #7 Cornell, #8 Brown); in all, six Ivy teams are in the field of 18 and playing this weekend.
 
5.88 • Points per game recorded by Handley in eight games against Ivy foes this season, after his 12-point weekend at the Ivy League Tournament.
 
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 then had 19 assists on their 30 goals at the Ivy Tournament last weekend.
 
12 • Points by Handley last weekend, seven vs. Brown (3g/4a) and five vs. Yale (3g/2a); that gives him 66 for the season which is third on Penn's single-season list behind Peter Hollis (75 in 1977) and Chris Conforti (67 in 1991).
 
14 • Penn's 47-man roster features players from 14 different states and Washington, D.C. That said, the traditional lacrosse hotspots are well represented (12 Maryland, 7 New York).
 
14:03 • Amount of game time needed by junior Gabe Furey to record all of his team-high five points (3g/2a) in Penn's win over Saint Joseph's on April 26; 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).
 
16 • Points scored over the last five games by freshman Ben Smith (3.1 ppg); prior to that, he had four points total across Penn's first nine contests.
 
16 • Players who have scored this season for Penn; Jack Joyce became the latest, scoring last Friday against Brown.
 
19 • Points accumulated by Furey over Penn's last seven games (2.7 ppg); the junior has gone for multiple points in all but one game during that span.
 
25 • Years since Penn had beaten Yale by seven or more goals, prior to Sunday's 16-9 win in the Ivy League Tournament final (18-9 in 1997).
 
46 • Goals by Gergar this season after he scored nine last weekend (5 vs. Brown, 4 vs. Yale); that is second on Penn's single-season list, behind only Gergar's former teammate Adam Goldner (56 in 2019).
 
48.2 • Face-off win percentage by Zusi against Saint Joseph's on April 26; 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.
 
56.0 • Penn's scoring percentage in EMO in Ivy play (14-of-25); the Quakers averaged 2.33 EMO goals per game in league play, then went 3-of-8 in the Ivy Tournament.