M. Lax falls to 'Nova in 2 OTs

Billy Reidy's goal for Penn was disallowed with five seconds left. Continuing its change from an unsettling early-season form, the Penn men's lacrosse team got of to a very fast start against Villanova. Unfortunately for Penn, the Wildcats(7-3) were also on fire, and the Quakers (5-6) dropped a double-overtime 15-14 nail-biter in front of 300 frostbitten fans. "It was a real difficult loss," Penn coach Marc Van Arsdale said. "It was a tough, closely played lacrosse game, as we'd anticipated. We just did a few things over the course of the game that cost us." The Quakers took a commanding 6-3 first quarter lead on the strength of senior co-captain Pete Janney's three goals. Villanova made up some ground in the second, and the Red and Blue took a precarious 8-7 lead into the locker room at halftime. The Quakers misplaced their offense for a while in the middle of the game, as Villanova pulled off a 9-2 run from the 5:10 mark in the second quarter until 12:48 remained in the fourth. "We turned the ball over a few times in there," Van Arsdale said. "I thought we had a good possession with the man advantage at the opening of the third quarter, and we scored right away. But then after that we hit a spell where we didn't score any goals." The Wildcats helped to limit the Quakers offensive production by shifting their defensive scheme to focus on Janney, who found the back of the net four times in the first half but scored only once in the second. "In the second half, they decided to shut me off," Janney said. "They didn't let me touch the ball at all, and we adjusted to that the best we could." Janney, junior Todd Minerley and freshman midfielder Alex Kopicki each scored goals midway through the fourth quarter to tie the game at 13. These goals came out of transition, before the Red and Blue could get into any offensive sets. "With [Villanova] taking me out of the offense, we were forced to run a little bit of a ragtag, fast-paced offense, where there's not a lot of structure to it," Janney said. Then, after Villanova attackman Eric Dauer put the Wildcats back on top, Minerley hit his fifth goal of the game with 28 seconds left in regulation to send the game to overtime with the score 14-14. Minerley's ball wasn't the last Quaker shot to get past Villanova goalie Matt Wilk in regulation -- it was just the last one to count. With five seconds remaining in the game, Penn middie Billy Reidy jumped in the air directly in front of the Wildcats net and fired the ball while he was parallel to the ground. While the Quakers sideline was celebrating prematurely, the referee was waving the goal off, claiming that Reidy had landed in the crease, thus voiding the score. "To tell you the truth, I couldn't tell if I was [in the crease or not]. I got back up so quickly," Reidy said. "The refs made the call, and you can't do anything about it." The Quakers charged into the first overtime, keeping the ball in the Villanova zone for most of the first extra four-minute period. The Quakers got off three shots in the first minute, two of which were very near-misses by Janney. "I was pretty tired at that point, being forced to run away from the ['Nova] shut-off the way I did," Janney said. Villanova didn't get off any shots in the first extra period, but they took several in the second, all but one of them either flew wide or were saved by freshman goalie Ryan Kelly, who made some incredible stops and got the Quakers fired up. "I think anytime a goalie steps up and makes a big save in a tight situation like that it gets the team rolling, thinking that we'll get the ball out of our end," Reidy said. The Wildcats' Dauer finally put one past Kelly for his fifth goal of the game and a thrilling Villanova win. This is a painful loss for the Quakers -- who had been undefeated against city opponents thus far this year -- because they failed to avenge last year's upset loss to Villanova on the Main Line and to climb back over the .500 mark.