Brown has a new star men’s lacrosse player — freshman Henry Blynn. The Haverford native is averaging 3.38 points per game in his rookie campaign, good for sixth in the Ivy League.
But despite his youth, he’s no stranger to some of the Quakers.
Blynn is the former teammate of three current Penn lacrosse members: Chris Hupfeldt, Sam Rohr and Joe McCallion.
“It’ll be the first time I’ve played against him in five years but he’s a good buddy of mine, he’s really good,” McCallion said. “It’s going to be a close game, but at the same time I’m playing with a chip on my shoulder so we’ll be friends after the game and before the game. But during that 60 minutes…”
No. 17 Penn (5-3, 1-2 Ivy) has lost to Brown (5-3, 1-1) each of the last three years, so history may not necessarily be on the Quakers’ side for those 60 minutes when they hit the road to take on the Bears on Saturday at 3 p.m.
“We expect another competitive game being another Ivy League contest,” coach Mike Murphy said. “I feel like they will probably come at us pretty hard. They like to run up and down and are pretty aggressive at the defensive end to things so I think it should be a fast-paced, physical game.”
Like the Red and Blue, Brown is also coming off of two straight losses, one to No. 7 Princeton and one to North Carolina.
“We’re playing with a chip on our shoulder, with an attitude this week,” McCallion said. “We struggled with a loss to Yale and we are just trying to get after it this week and do our best to beat Brown.”
With a solid, aggressive defense and a powerhouse offense led by Blynn, the Bears are going to be tough to beat. But, the experience the Quakers have with Blynn should help give them an edge.
“It helps with my communicating to the defenders guarding him,” McCallion said. “Chris Hupfeldt also went to Haverford. I’m sure he has developed his game since the two years I’ve been with him, but it helps that I know his tendencies.”
According to Murphy, meeting former teammates of players is no rare occasion.
“We know [Blynn] well but his game has evolved a lot from high school,” he said. “We base most of our scouting from what we have seen of him this year, but they do know some idiosyncrasies.”
This weekend is the first of two crucial Ivy road trips for the Red and Blue. Next weekend, Penn will return up north to take on Harvard.
But the future won’t mean quite as much if the Quakers don’t take care of the freshman phenom from their high school past.
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