Skip To Main Content

University of Pennsylvania Athletics

Men's Soccer Huddle
Chaowu Li
2
Brown BROWN (5-4-8, 2-0-5)
2
Penn PENN (7-3-6, 4-1-2)
Brown BROWN
(5-4-8, 2-0-5)
2
Final
2
Penn PENN
(7-3-6, 4-1-2)
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 OT 1 OT 2 OT 3 F
Brown BROWN 0 1 1 0 0 2
Penn PENN 0 1 0 1 0 2

Game Recap: Men's Soccer |

Men’s Soccer Draws with Brown in Ivy Semifinal, 2-2; Bears Advance on PKs

PHILADELPHIA – Hard fought until the end. The University of Pennsylvania men's soccer team battled to a 2-2 draw with Brown in an Ivy League Tournament semifinal Friday night at Penn Park, with the Bears advancing to Sunday's final on penalty kicks.
 
Defender Leo Burney scored in the 70th minute, and after Brown scored late in regulation and again in the first overtime period forward Stas Korzeniowski tacked on an equalizer in the second extra session to force the match to PKs. However, the Bears converted three while Penn made only two, one being saved and two others missing the goal. The match goes into the books as a tie, so Penn closes out the 2023 season with a 7-3-6 overall record. Brown, meanwhile, is now 5-4-8 and will meet third-seeded Yale in Sunday's final after the Bulldogs routed second-seeded Harvard in Friday's first semi, 4-0.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*Freshman Phillip Falcon III made his collegiate and postseason debut in net tonight. The goalkeeper made four saves, including a crucial one on a Brown PK in the 107th minute that sent the match to penalty kicks.
 
*Burney's goal was his first of the year.
 
*Korzeniowski ends the season with a team-high 20 points, on six goals and a league-leading eight assists.
 
*Ben Do, Mattias Hanchard, Jacob Muchnick, Oliver Pratt and Burney played the full 110 minutes, a career-long for all six Quakers.
 
*Corners were a big part of the semifinal, with Brown having a 6-4 advantage.
 
*Both teams were firing on all cylinders at the keepers, with the Red and Blue outshooting Brown 13-11 on the night. The Bears put seven shots on goal while Penn tallied six.
 
How It Happened
The Bears opened the game with an intense pace, being granted a corner in the first minute that the Quaker defense headed away. The corners kept coming, as Brown was awarded back-to-back corners in the seventh minute. Pratt headed away the first, and Falcon III made a huge save at the top of his net to keep the second from going in the net.
 
The Quakers didn't get their first offensive attempt until 14 minutes in, when Do slammed one toward the net that was blocked by a Brown defender. Korzeniowski recorded Penn's first shot at Brown's Hudson Blatteis in the 24th minute, but the keeper prevailed to keep the match scoreless.
 
Both teams were quiet for the rest of the half, the Bears receiving a yellow card with three minutes left on the clock. Junior Mathis Varin closed out the first half with a shot that went wide to hold the score at 0-0 after 45 minutes.
 
Defender Do opened the second half hot, with a good look at the net that was just shy of going in. Brown's Kojo Dadzie had the Bears' first shot of the second half in the 59th minute that Burney blocked to keep the score at 0-0.
 
As Burney kept Brown off the board on one end of the field, he scored his first goal of the season at the other end in the 70th minute off a bicycle kick. Assists went to Korzeniowski and Muchnick on the play that put Penn ahead, 1-0.
The Bears showed resilience, and it paid off when Levin Pillar tied the game up with just 2:29 left in regulation. Shortly after that, Lorenzo Amaral tried to give the Bears the win in regulation, but Falcon made the save at the top of his net to force overtime.  
With a little less than three minutes left in the first overtime, Brown's Scott Gustafson broke the tie to put the Bears up 2-1.

The two-time defending champion Quakers were not going down without a fight. Muchnick tried to notch the game back up again in the 99th minute, but Brown's keeper made the save to end the first overtime. However, Korzeniowski needed less than two minutes in the second OT period to equalize, his sixth goal of the year coming off a dish from Burney and tying the match at 2-2.
With four minutes on the clock, the Quakers committed a foul that gave the Bears a penalty kick. However, the freshman Falcon picked correctly and made the save to keep the match level.  
Penalty kicks opened with senior Michael Hewes nailing his kick and Brown's Dadzie missing. Both Penn's and Brown's attempts were saved in the next round to keep the intense energy alive. Muchnick was the last Quaker to make his penalty kick, but sadly it was not being enough as the Bears made the rest of their kicks to advance to Sunday's ILT final.
 
From the Source
"Tonight's game was a battle from start to finish," said James C. Gentle Head Coach Brian Gill. "It had a very intense playoff feeling, which is what we could only hope for. We fought hard tonight, no question about that. These games with tight margins are always close, and unfortunately for us it didn't go our way. I want to congratulate Brown on making it to the final. Hats off to our seniors for the way they played tonight and the impact they have made on our program."
 
#FightOnPenn

 
Print Friendly Version