The men’s lacrosse team fell to No. 17 Penn Saturday in a 10-3 decision. The loss makes the chances of Bruno reaching the Ivy League Tournament in a few weeks even slimmer.
Nick Piroli ’15, Henry Blynn ’16 and Sam Hurster ’14 all scored goals in the contest, but the points were not enough to overcome Quaker goalie Brian Feeney’s 15 saves, who gave what Brown Head Coach Lars Tiffany ’91 called a “phenomenal” performance.
“Looking at those 15 saves, he was simply outstanding. I don’t think he’s the reason they won the game, but he’s the reason they won by a lot,” Tiffany said.
Though Isaac Bock gave Penn (6-3, 2-2 Ivy) an early lead in the first quarter, Piroli responded for the Bears (5-4, 1-2) just 35 seconds later on an assist from Nick Weeden ’15. But the rest of the first half was dominated by Penn. Bock scored his second goal with 4:14 remaining in the first quarter, complemented by a Drew Bellinsky score to give the Quakers a 3-1 lead at the end of the period.
Penn kept up the onslaught in the second quarter. Zack Losco struck first with a bouncing goal past Brown goalie Jack Kelly ’16. Bock completed the hat-trick with four minutes left in the half on Tim Schwalje’s second assist. Anthony Santomo widened the margin to 6-1, scoring with 6.4 seconds left.
In the first half, Brown won just one of its first 10 face-offs, with the sole winner coming on a Penn violation. The trend would continue through the game, and Penn won the final face-off tally 14-4.
“It’s always been troublesome for us, and it’s just gotten more troublesome lately,” Tiffany said. “If we get to 50-50, we neutralize that issue. But at 14-4, we got thoroughly dominated today.”
Blynn broke a 23-minute scoreless streak for Bruno 30 seconds into the third quarter with his team-leading 20th goal of the season. Two weeks ago, he was named Ivy League Rookie of the Week.
Hurster followed Blynn with a man-up goal at 5:46, his 17th of the year, tightening the score at 6-3.
When Quaker Mark Leonhard tallied another score from the top of the box at 4:20, Tiffany replaced Kelly with Will Round ’14, who served as Bruno’s starting goalie last season.
The Quakers scored three more times to bring the final score to 10-3.
“We got soundly defeated by a better lacrosse program at phases of the game we’re similar to them,” Tiffany said.
Brown will move on to face No. 16 Yale (6-3, 2-2) Friday evening on the road.
“We’re obviously a step below (Yale) right now,” Tiffany said. “We went on spring break, and we’ve been limping through the last couple of games. … We will play better and better competition as the season goes on. We have to step up to it, and we didn’t today.”
Penn will also hit the road to take on Harvard (4-6, 1-2) Saturday.