PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania men's lacrosse team completed a solid week of action with a 14-6 win over the University of Delaware Saturday at Franklin Field.
 
Penn won for the second time this week, posting 29 goals in the process, in improving to 2-1 overall. The Blue Hens fell to 1-3 on the young season.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*Penn had a massive advantage on the shot chart (57-37) and on faceoffs (19-5) on Saturday against the Hens. Of particular note, senior Mac Eldridge was the hot hand on the X, winning 17 of his 19 faceoffs on the day.
 
*Five different players scored multiple goals, led by senior Griffin Scane and junior Davis Provost who had three apiece. Provost also had an assist.
 
*Sophomore Nate Lucchesi scored twice and dished out two assists to finish the day with four points.
 
*Freshman Jackson Maher also had two goals and two assists on Saturday, giving him nine points for the week.
 
*Junior Grayson McClements scored two goals on Saturday, after entering the game with one for his collegiate career.
 
*Junior Leo Hoffman led Penn with four assists on Saturday.
 
*Junior Ben Beacham finished the day with three points, scoring once and adding two assists.
 
*Sophomore Pearse MacDonald scored his first collegiate goal.
 
*At the other end, three was the magic number for goalkeeper Jack Pelot—in his third appearance for Penn, the sophomore made 16 saves while allowing just the six goals, a stunning .727 save percentage.
 
*John McCurry was Delaware's only multi-goal scorer on Saturday, with two. No other player had more than one point for the Hens.
 
How It Happened
Beacham needed just 62 seconds to get Penn on the board, beating his man up top and whipping one home. McClements made it 2-0 about four minutes later. Delaware got on the board almost exactly at the midpoint of the period, but three minutes after that Hoffman drove, dished and delivered to Lucchesi who snapped off a jumper to make it 3-1. Davis scored in transition late in the period—a goal that was answered by the Blue Hens just 20 seconds later—and then Maher got on the board when he finished Hoffman's feed from up top and his shot squirted through the UD keeper. Penn's lead was 5-2 after one.
 
Penn posted the only goals in the second quarter. The first came on some inside-out, tic-tac-toe action midway through the period and then Scane and Maher scored in the final three minutes to send the Quakers to the locker room with an 8-2 advantage.
 
Delaware opened the second-half scoring—the Blue Hens' first goal in more than 17 minutes—but Lucchesi answered two minutes later with a nice inside roll on the left post. UD scored again, but this time Provost needed less than a minute to respond with a jumper from the left side. The Hens challenged the ruling of a goal, but it was unsuccessful and the goal was good, making the score 10-4. Another Hoffman drive and dish to Lucchesi made it 11-4 with just less than seven minutes to go, and that was all the scoring in the period.
 
Penn used the exact same play to score the first two goals in the fourth quarter. The first time, Beacham drew a defender and found Scane wide open. The second time, it was Lucchesi who drew and dished to the senior. A little more than a minute later, MacDonald had his first collegiate goal and Penn had a double-digit advantage on its guests with more than 12 minutes to play. Delaware scored the only goals the rest of the way.
 
Up Next
Penn is back at home for a pair of games next weekend, hosting No. 5 North Carolina on Friday at 5 p.m. and top-ranked Syracuse on Sunday at noon. Sunday's game against the Orange will air in the Philadelphia region on NBC Sports Philadelphia+ in addition to its national reach on ESPN+.
 
For the latest on Penn men's lacrosse, follow @PennMensLax on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.