PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania men's lacrosse team hung with the second-ranked University of North Carolina Friday night at Franklin Field, but the Tar Heels broke a 7-7 tie late in the third quarter and kept the Quakers at bay in the fourth to grab an 11-9 victory.
 
Penn (2-2) had its modest two-game win streak ended, while UNC—ranked second in the USILA coaches' poll and first in the Inside Lacrosse media poll—improved to 5-0. Friday's game was the first day of the ACC/Ivy Challenge, which also involves Princeton and Syracuse (the Tigers beating the Orange, 11-7, at Old Nassau).
 
Quaker Notemeal
*Senior Griffin Scane led the Penn attack with four goals, tying his season high (originally set at UAlbany); he has scored multiple goals in every game so far this season.
 
*Freshman Jackson Maher and junior SSDM Anthony McMullan were the only other multi-point scorers for the Red and Blue on Friday, both of them recording a goal and an assist for two points.
 
*Penn's other goal scorers on Friday were senior Travis Smith and juniors Ben Beacham and Davis Provost.
 
*Junior Leo Hoffman had another assist, giving him six this season which is tied for the team lead with Maher.
 
*At the other end, sophomore goalie Jack Pelot finished with 12 saves for a .522 save percentage.
 
*UNC was led by Dominic Pietramala, who scored five goals and dished off an assist for six points. Owen Duffy (2g/3a) finished with five points while Brevin Wilson scored two early goals. Josh Marcus had eight saves in the goal.
 
How It Happened
Things started fairly slowly on Friday night, nearly six minutes going by before Pietramala beat Pelot with a low-to-high shot from the right side. The Quakers leveled things about a minute later, McMullan feeding Scane in transition and the senior scoring from up top. Wilson did all the scoring in the period after that, giving UNC a 3-1 lead after one.
 
Penn owned the first half of the second quarter, scoring four times in a 3:06 span, flipping the two-goal script from a deficit to a lead. Maher and Beacham got it started with individual efforts just 49 seconds apart to tie things, and then Scane finished a transition feed from Nate Lucchesi to give the Red and Blue its first lead. About a minute later, Provost went down the right alley and fired home a right-handed shot to make the score 5-3. Those were the only goals the Quakers would score the rest of the half, however, and the Tar Heels got back level with a pair of goals in the final 1:08 before the break.
 
Duffy put UNC up a little more than two minutes into the third, but Scane got his hat trick in spectacular fashion about two minutes later. Coming around the right post from behind the goal, the senior roll dodged toward the goal, fell, but from the ground fired a shot into the far upper corner. That tied things at 6-6. The Heels went back in front with 9:09 left in the period, and more than four minutes went by before McMullan surprised everyone when he took a feed from Pelot and essentially went coast-to-coast to tie things at 7-7.
 
Brady Wambach needed just five seconds to put UNC back in front, winning the ensuing faceoff, taking the ball down the gut and firing it home. Just 40 seconds after that, Pietramala scored off a Duffy feed and that closed out the third-period scoring with the Heels up 9-7.
 
Smith got Penn within a goal just 25 seconds into the fourth quarter on the Quakers' first man-up situation of the night, sniping the upper corner from the left side. However, it would be more than 11 minutes before the Quakers scored again and UNC took advantage with a pair of goals to gain some separation.
 
Up Next
Penn is right back at it on Sunday to close out ACC/Ivy Challenge play, hosting No. 7 Syracuse—the Orange's first visit to Franklin Field since 2002. Sunday's game against the Orange will air in the Philadelphia region on NBC Sports Philadelphia+ in addition to its national reach on the ESPN+ streaming service.
 
For the latest on Penn men's lacrosse, follow @PennMensLax on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.