Good things take time, but great things happen suddenly.
This proved true in the No. 13 Penn men’s lacrosse team’s 10-9 triple-overtime victory over No. 15 Yale (5-2, 1-2 Ivy) Friday afternoon at a rainy Franklin Field.
After a back-and-forth 60 minutes of regulation and two scoreless overtime periods, freshman midfielder Drew Belinsky rocketed in the winning goal for the Quakers (5-3, 2-1) because of a stick advantage over his defender.
“We wanted to attack their short sticks,” Belinsky said. “They had a short stick on me. He ended up being a couple yards off me, so I saw the hole and just took it.”
Defenders generally wield long poles so they can maintain contact with speedy attackers without having to match their agile footwork perfectly.
Without this extra length of their sticks, defenders are more vulnerable to tricky moves from would-be scorers.
And this is exactly what happened as Belinsky split two defenders — one disadvantaged because of a short stick — on the right side of the goal, cut left and forced in a left-handed scorcher past Yale goalkeeper Johnathan Falcone.
Despite on-and-off showers that kept the field excitingly slippery, Belinsky found the right footing to end a marathon affair.
Both teams seemed to be feeling each other out to start the contest, running methodical passing routines and trading goals.
Senior co-captain Corey Winkoff drew first blood with an unassisted goal just 1:16 into the first quarter, but the Bulldogs answered right back with two of their own.
Penn sophomore attack Ryan Parietti knotted the score at two at the end of the first quarter, but then the Bulldogs took control.
A quick three-goal burst from midfielder Matt Miller and attackmen Matt Gibson and Brandon Mangan put the Quakers in a hole only 2:10 into the second quarter.
By the half, the Red and Blue had managed to trade one more goal and headed into the locker room down, 6-3.
And then something clicked for the Quakers.
“We’ve practiced a lot of those situations,” Penn coach Mike Murphy said. “Similar position to what we were in last week [against Cornell]. All of a sudden, we start playing.”
And play they did. Penn rattled off five straight goals — three of them from junior midfielder Dan Savage — to jump out to an 8-6 advantage with a quarter and a half left in regulation.
“We’re a second-half team,” Savage said. “When we go on runs, it’s scary for the other teams ’cause we just keep scoring and they don’t know what to do.”
And it certainly didn’t hurt that the Bulldogs committed five penalties in the quarter, affording the Quakers 3:30 of man-up play.
Yale’s Gibson knew what to do against the Quaker onslaught, trading a goal with Penn’s Rob Fitzpatrick to end the third.
It looked like the Red and Blue’s stalwart defense — headlined by freshman goalkeeper Brian Feeney — might be able to ride it out to the finish.
For 11:30 of the 15-minute period, they did just that.
But Yale’s Miller would not be denied. He scored two unassisted goals in the last 3:30 to tie the game at nine and send the contest to the first of its eventual three overtime periods.
“Give Yale credit,” Murphy said. “They made one real nice play.”
The first two overtime periods consisted of each team probing as best they could without being able to effectively put shots on goal. Feeney made the only save after regulation early in the first extra period.
And then it was Belinsky’s time to shine.
“We called one play, and ran through the progression of it and didn’t really get the look we were hoping to get,” Murphy said. “And then as Drew was getting the ball down to where he was going to initiate the offense, he just went at his guy and they really didn’t slide.”
They didn’t slide, and the defender’s short stick made it too hard for him to bridge the gap.
And who better than Belinsky to succinctly describe what happened next?
“[I] threw the ball at the cage and it went in.”
