Another cardiac win for M. Lax

The Quakers are getting used to playing in close games. They're almost getting too used to it.

On Saturday afternoon at Dartmouth, the Red and Blue built up a six-goal lead in the first half, only to see the Big Green torch them for seven of the next eight goals, tying the game at eight and forcing overtime.

But in the extra session, Penn's Justin Lynch won the faceoff, and 28 seconds later Corey Winkoff fed Garvey Heiderman for the game-winner, edging out the Big Green, 9-8.

The Quakers (3-1) were able to stop the bleeding just before they passed out.

"It was a little bit of a rollercoaster game, but the bottom line is we sucked it up and did what we needed to do to win the game in the end," Penn coach Brian Voelker said.

Since dropping a one-goal decision to Drexel in the season opener, Penn has gone 4-1 in two-goal games, including a 9-7 win over Yale, a 12-10 victory over Harvard and, now, the close shave against Dartmouth - the fourth one-goal game with which it has been involved this season.

"I feel like we're maturing," Heiderman said. "We've been in so many close games that it really doesn't get to us as much any more."

Heiderman didn't want to spend his seven-hour bus ride back to Philadelphia thinking about his team handing away its title hopes.

"It would have been terrible, that's what was going through my head. After every goal that was scored I was like 'there's no way we're going back with a loss.' It was not going to happen."

Dartmouth scored in the game's opening five minutes, but Penn went on a tear right afterwards, hitting the onion bag seven times in the next 13:15 to take a seemingly insurmountable lead.

Alex Weber scored three goals, and Craig Andrzejewski had two.

But the Quakers would only score once in the final 37:44 of regulation, as Dartmouth slowly but surely came back to tie the game at eight on Tim Daniels' first goal of the season with just over two minutes to go.

Then came Penn's final push.

With the first possession of overtime, the Quakers' play out of the timeout ended in an errant shot, but they capitalized immediately after.

"Justin did what he needed to do to win the faceoff in overtime," Voelker said. "We ran a play that didn't quite work, but then Corey picked up the ball on the endline, Garvey made a nice cut, he put the ball on his stick and Garvey buried the ball in the crease."

The Quakers can celebrate pulling out the must-win game, but they can't be satisfied with the way it happened.

"We let them get back into it in the third quarter with some bad shots and costly turnovers," Andrzejewski said.

And Heiderman added, "This is one that definitely should not have been close. Great teams find a way to pull it out, and hopefully we're a great team."

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