Brown Men’s Lacrosse Upsets #14 Penn

The Brown Bears (5-5, 1-2 Ivy League) erased a four-goal deficit to take a 12-11 home win over the 14th-ranked Penn Quakers (4-5, 2-2 Ivy League) Saturday afternoon at Stevenson-Pincince Field.

Jack Kelly, Griffin King, and Devon McLane all finished with hat tricks to lead the Bears offensively.

“I’m just really proud of the team and the assistant coaches for getting it done today,” said head coach Mike Daly. “We’ve been really close, it’s been really frustrating, but we hung in there as we talked about last week. We made a couple plays that we needed to make, key plays, and that’s what the game comes down to in this league; we essentially made one more play than they did.”

Penn and Brown traded goals in the first frame to send the game to the second quarter in a 2-2 tie. Adian McLane and Griffin King struck for the Bears with Gabe Furey and Tynan Walsh finding the back of the net for the Quakers.

After Ben Smith and King traded goals to begin the second quarter, Penn tallied four straight goals to take a 7-3 lead with 3:13 remaining in the first half.

From there, Brown cut into the lead as King capped the hat trick and Jack Kelly tallied his first of the game to make it 7-5 Penn at the half.

Kelly added his second of the game to start the third quarter before Luke DiNola pushed Penn’s lead back to two at 8-6. Trey Taylor recorded his first career goal in transition with Charlie Cave picking up the assist to bring the Bears within a goal heading to the fourth quarter.

Connor Theriault (12 saves) made consecutive saves halfway through the frame to keep the Bears within striking distance.

Devon McLane got on the scoresheet with his first point of the game and 19th goal of the season with 14:09 remaining to tie the game at 8-8.

Devon tallied his second and third goals of the game with 8:43 and 6:07 remaining, respectively, to give the Bears a 10-9 lead, the team’s first of the game.

Matthew Gunty struck for his second goal of the season just six seconds after DiNola tied the game at 10-10 to put the Bears back ahead by a goal with 4:53 remaining.

Kelly recorded his third career hat trick with 2:17 remaining in the fourth quarter to give the Bears a 12-11 lead.

Penn regained possession in the final minute and had a chance to force overtime, but Trevor Yeboah-Kodie forced a James Shipley turnover with Mark Witt picking up the ground ball to seal the win.

GAME NOTES
King recorded his first career hat trick in the win and finished with a career-high five points. The Niskayuna, New York native added a career-high five ground balls.
Gibson Linnehan finished with a career-high six ground balls. Tyler Blackburn matched a career-high with five ground balls.
Both teams finished the game with 41 shots, 32 ground balls, and 12 saves. Brown had 24 shots on goal compared to 23 for the Quakers.
Brown was a perfect 18-for-18 on clears with Penn finishing 17-for-21.
The Bears were 2-for-2 on extra-man opportunities with Devon striking twice. Penn finished 0-for-1.
Gunty finished 13-for-24 (.542) at X with three ground balls. Dash Sachs went 1-for-2 as the Bears finished 14-for-26 (.538). Gunty notably won the final faceoff of the game with 2:17 remaining to give the Bears possession.
Brown returns to the road to take on the Yale Bulldogs (5-4, 1-3 Ivy League) on Saturday, April 15 at noon. Next Saturday’s game will stream on ESPN+.