The No. 20 men's lacrosse team rose up to beat Penn, 12-9, on Saturday in Philadelphia to advance to 5-4 overall and 2-1 in Ivy League play.
"Two games in a row, (against) Bryant and Penn, it's been tied in the fourth quarter and we were the ones who stepped up and made plays," said Head Coach Lars Tiffany '90. "We picked up tough ground balls off the faceoffs, we made saves, we scored goals. … The win is big, but it's how we won it that's really big for me."
Andrew Feinberg '11 netted four goals, quad-captain Thomas Muldoon '10 added three and Matt Chriss '11 made 12 saves for Brown.
The Bears jumped out to a 4-1 lead with 12:04 left in the second quarter on goals by Muldoon, Nicholas Laster '12, Feinberg and Rob Schlesinger '12. But the Quakers (4-7, 0-4) scored three-straight goals to go into halftime knotted at 4-4.
"We lost our intensity in our one-on-one defense," Tiffany said.
The teams then traded goals for the first 16 minutes of the second half, with neither side able to open a two-goal advantage. Parker Brown '12 scored just 13 seconds into the third quarter, but Penn answered in 1:14. Feinberg again gave the Bears the lead, but the Quakers responded with two goals to take a 7-6 lead.
Muldoon and Feinberg followed with goals in the waning minutes of the quarter, but Penn tied the game at 8-8 just 37 seconds into the fourth quarter.
"It was punch, counter-punch, attack, counter-attack," Tiffany said. "You have to give credit to both teams. We were trying to play as fast as we could, up-and-down, fast-paced, high-intensity game and Penn was willing to do it as well, so things loosened up for both offenses in the second half. It really was a fun lacrosse game to … watch (and) to coach."
The Bears then took control of the game. David Hawley '11 gave Brown a 9-8 lead with 11:56 left, as quad-captain Reade Seligmann '10 handed out one of his four assists on the game. Goals by Parker Brown '12, Muldoon and Feinberg finished off the Quakers, giving Brown a four-goal lead with 42 seconds left, though Penn tacked on a man-up goal 17 seconds later.
Tiffany said the key to the strong second-half offense was "unleashing (the players) and giving them more creativity and more room to make plays."
"Four of the eight second-half goals were scramble lacrosse, playing fast," he said. "The ball goes down, we pick it up and fly from the defensive end to the offensive end, creating an odd-man rush on the opposition."
Tiffany said that the team will gain confidence from winning its second-straight game that was tied in the fourth quarter. With Brown having played eight games this season that were tied or within one goal in the fourth quarter, and winning four of them, Tiffany said he can see a "quiet confidence" emerging in his players that reminds him of previous years.
"With the successful teams of 2008 and 2009, we were in many close games in those years — we won a majority of them," Tiffany said.
The Bears will try to build on that when they host No. 19 Yale (7-2, 2-2) Saturday at 1 p.m. on Stevenson Field. The Bulldogs' only losses have come to No. 5 Princeton and No. 12 Cornell.
"While we will face a formidable opponent in Yale, we must first and foremost focus on being true to who we are," Tiffany said. "That's playing aggressive, fast and with our ‘Brown State' mentality … and our ‘Brown State' edge."
