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Mens Lacrosse vs UMBC Credit: Alexis Ziebelman , Alexis Ziebelman

So close yet so far.

On Saturday, Penn men’s lacrosse nearly clinched its first Ivy win, but couldn’t finish the task. In the third overtime period, Cornell scored to end the game with 10 goals compared to the Quakers’ nine.

Senior midfield Joe McCallion got Penn (3-5, 0-2 Ivy) on the board first within three minutes of play. But the next three goals all belonged to the Big Red (6-2, 2-0 Ivy).

McCallion put one more into the net at the end of the first period before Cornell scored five straight on junior goalkeeper Jimmy Sestilio.

Going into the locker room at halftime, the Red and Blue were down, 9-4. After the intermission, it was an entirely different story.

“It wasn’t a whole lot of tactical adjustments made and there wasn’t a lot of fire and brimstone,” coach Mike Murphy said of his team’s first half perforamnce. “[It was] more just a matter of recognizing the situation and making a few adjustments here and there.”

One of those adjustments came in the goal for Penn, as senior goalie John Lopes replaced Sestilio.

The Quakers put five into the net, meanwhile at the other end of the field Lopes didn’t let a single shot into the net in the second half.

“John [Lopes] played [as] well as you can ask a goalie to play,” Murphy said. “But we also had a much better defensive performance in the second half and some of the shots that went in in the first half were just layups. Most teams are going to score on all of those shots because of defensive breakdowns.”

McCallion was responsible for two of the five goals that tied the game up, with one each coming from junior attack Nick Doktor and senior attacks Isaac Bock and Will Laco.

Though Penn started overtime a man up with Cornell midfield John Hogan in the penalty box for 30 seconds due to holding, it was unable to convert control and shots into goals.

Cornell held onto the ball for the second overtime period of four minutes without scoring on Lopes.

The only goal Lopes allowed came in the third overtime from Cornell attack Dan Lintner. In nearly 40 minutes of play, Lopes made nine saves, while Sestilio let in nine and stopped two in his 30 minutes.

Though the Quakers outshot the Big Red, 55-49, forcing Cornell goalie Christian Knight to make 13 saves, they came up just short of a conference win.

“I think finally we started playing defense in the second half yesterday the way that we want to play defense at the level we did last year and the year before when we were strong defensively,” Murphy said.

With losses in its first two Ivy contests, Penn is currently at the bottom of the league with Yale and Harvard.

Though not a promising start to the conference schedule, last year the Quakers had a nearly identical opening stretch, losing to both Princeton and Cornell before going on to defeat every other team in the Ancient Eight.

“My hope is that now we are shored up on defense,” Murphy said. “With our new starters in place, hopefully they have got enough experience where they can be more dependable. We’re poised to be complete. I don’t think we are going to be dominate facing off, but I think we can be consistent and tough and hopefully win as many as we lose, or more.”

Penn will have its next opportunity to claim an Ivy win next Saturday at home against Yale.

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