PHILADELPHIA – Saturday had a little bit of everything on Alumni Day. The #19 University of Pennsylvania men's lacrosse team led to start the game and came back from a deficit to edge #20 Yale, 17-16 at Franklin Field.
The win improves Penn's overall record to 4-4 and 2-1 in Ivy League play, while the Bulldogs dropped their third consecutive Ivy contest to fall to 0-3 with three to go.
Two Quakers led the way with four goals to pace the offense in
Ben Smith and a breakout performance from
Tynan Walsh, while
Sam Handley dished out three assists and defensively,
Brendan Lavelle led the way with four caused turnovers and four GBs.
Quaker Notemeal
*Penn improved to 2-1 in the Ivy League with the victory, evening its overall record at 4-4.
*The Quakers got their second straight win over Yale in the all-time series.
*Penn scored more than 13 goals for the first time this season. The Quakers are 2-0 when their offense puts up that total or more in 2023.
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Ben Smith scored four goals for the second time in three games, while
Tynan Walsh's four-goal performance is a new career high. Walsh previously had never scored more than two goals in a single game.
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Sam Handley and
Robert Schain both added two goals while the former added three assists for five points. Handley has tallied at least one point in 41 straight games. He now has 90 goals for his career (ninth all time), 80 assists (sixth) and 170 career points, putting him in seventh for that category.
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Peter Blake scored the Quakers' first pole goal of the season with his first of the year (second of his career).
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Matt Palazzi and
Chris Arceri both tallied first career goals for Penn.
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Brendan Lavelle finished the afternoon with a career-high four caused turnovers and four ground balls. Six other Quakers totaled an additional six caused turnovers while aside from Arceri, Lavelle,
Piper Bond and Blake each registered four GBs to pace the defense.
*From the X, Arceri was excellent going 20-for-34 with 10 ground balls, also scoring his goal.
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Emmet Carroll finished with 12 saves between the pipes.
*Penn out-shot Yale, 55-52, including 30-28 on shots on goal.
*The Quakers won the face-off battle, 20-15, and held a 31-30 edge on ground balls.
*For Yale, Leo Johnson also produced a four-goal game, while Matt Brandau had three and both Thomas Bragg and Carson Kuhl had two.
Gallery: (4-1-2023) Men's Lacrosse vs. #20 Yale - 4/1/23
How It Happened
Penn scored the game's first four goals to go up 4-0 early with 7:42 remaining in the first quarter. Two of those goals were scored by
Tynan Walsh, while the second proved to be the Quakers' first man-down goal of the season.
Yale's first of the contest was netted by Leo Johnson with 6:13 to play on the man-up, while Penn quickly answered back with
Chris Arceri's FOGO goal, his first wearing the Red and Blue to take a 5-1 lead.
The Bulldogs scored two straight via Johnson and Patrick Hackler to cut the deficit to 5-3, while the two teams went back-and-forth for the remainder of the first with Penn leading 6-4 at the end of the period.
Matt Palazzi got the second half going strong with his first goal of the year to extend Penn's lead to 7-4, but that's when Yale made its comeback with five in a row and seven of eight to take an 11-8 lead with just six seconds remaining in the first half.
With time expiring,
James Shipley sent a prayer from the 50-yard line to
Ben Smith, who flipped the ball into the net for the buzzer-beater, cutting the Yale lead to 11-9 heading into the locker room.
Starting the third quarter, Matt Brandau scored two straight goals for the Bulldogs, to increase the lead to 13-9, Yale's largest lead of the game with 8:26 to play in the quarter. Three minutes remained in the third and Penn went on a run with three unanswered goals from Shipley,
Robert Schain and
Sam Handley to make it a 13-12 game with 1:22 on the clock. With 1:13 remaining, Yale got some breathing room with a FOGO goal to take a 14-12 lead heading into the fourth quarter.
Smith and Walsh went back-to-back to draw Penn even with Yale to open the fourth quarter, while the Bulldogs scored two of their own from Carson Kuhl and Brad Sharp to go ahead, 16-14, with 7:57 to play in regulation.
Four minutes passed and Schain brought the Quakers back within one of the lead with 3:33 to go, scoring on the unassisted strike for his second tally of the day. Smith netted his fourth to equalize with 2:35 to go and with just 1:17 on the clock, it was
Casey Mulligan who found Walsh for the score that became the game-winning goal, giving Penn a 17-16 lead.
Yale won the game's final faceoff and played in its offensive zone for the remainder of the game, searching for the game-tying goal, but it was
Emmet Carroll who came up huge with his 12th save of the game, denying Brandau of the equalizer with six seconds left as
Piper Bond picked up the ground ball to seal the victory.
Up Next
The Quakers head back on the road for the first of two straight games and kick off Easter Weekend with a 1 p.m. battle at Brown in Providence on Saturday.
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