Penn men's lacrosse shocks No. 10 Brown

Winless in its first three Ivy League contests, Penn men’s lacrosse had nowhere to go but up in its matchup with No. 10 Brown on Saturday afternoon.

Mired in a five-game losing streak, one in which the Quakers played a top-20 opponent each time out, the Red and Blue rallied from a halftime deficit in Providence with a blitz of second-half scores to shock the Bears, 14-11.

From the contest’s onset, Penn (4-6, 1-3 Ivy) seemed doomed to fall victim to a similar pattern. Due in large part to a relatively inexperienced defense, the Quakers entered Saturday’s matchup having conceded double-digit goals in seven of its nine games.

After the Bears (8-2, 2-1) opened the affair with three consecutive unassisted goals in five minutes, Penn found itself needing to not only buckle down on the defensive side of the ball, but to keep pace offensively with their Ivy rivals as well.

Trailing 3-0, freshman midfield Kevin McGeary converted a pass from junior attack Nick Doktor into the Quakers’ first score of the matchup. However, Brown didn’t take long to respond, clawing back with a goal 24 seconds later from Kylor Bellistri.

Despite the setback, the Red and Blue kept pushing forward, notching another goal 36 seconds later as senior attack Chris Hupfeldt capped a wild minute in which the teams combined for three scores. The Haverford, Pa., native notched his seventh goal of the season with 6:24 to play, cutting Penn’s deficit to 4-2.

As the first period drew to a close, sophomore attack Kevin Brown and Hupfeldt’s brother — freshman attack Reilly — added a goal apiece to level the contest through 15 minutes.

However, after clawing back, the second quarter began in much the same fashion for the Quakers, as Brown's Dylan Molloy scored his second goal of the day and Tim Jacob found the back of the net to put the Bears ahead, 6-4, with 10:20 left before halftime.

Over the course of the next five minutes, both squads went scoreless before the younger Hupfeldt and Doktor each notched their 13th goal of the 2015 campaign 77 seconds apart to knot the matchup once again. Penn and Brown continued their back-and-forth affair throughout the remainder of the first half, as Bellistri and junior Henry Blynn put the Bears up by two before McGeary cut the Red and Blue’s deficit to 8-7 heading into the break.

Despite having spent virtually the entirety of the first 30 minutes playing from behind, it did not take long for the Quakers to assert themselves in the third period. Doktor scored an unassisted goal 30 seconds into the half to tie the matchup at eight.

After the teams traded scores once again, Doktor found rookie defense Connor Keating for a score with 10:58 left in the third quarter, giving Penn its first lead of the day, 10-9. Although Bellistri had the Bears back level within 90 seconds, it didn’t take long for the Quakers to push forward and seal the end to their losing skid.

After four minutes of scoreless action, Brown and senior midfield Joe McCallion scored to give the Red and Blue the lead, 12-10, heading into the fourth quarter. Consecutive goals by junior midfield Pat Berkery — his sixth and seventh of the season, respectively — capped Penn’s four-goal spurt before Jacob scored with 2:03 to play to bring the Bears back within three.

Following the win, the Quakers still have a chance to compete in the Ivy League Tournament at season’s end. However, in order to do so, Penn will need to win its final two games, the first of which comes against Harvard in Boston next Saturday.

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