The men’s lacrosse team defeated the University of Pennsylvania 15-12 in its third consecutive win on Saturday to improve the Pioneers’ record to 4-1 so far this season and advance from No. 10 to No. 7 in the national rankings.
“We were a little erratic,” said head coach Bill Tierney. “I have to give Penn a lot of credit. We thought we had a great week of practice and that we prepared well for them, but they are as energetic and non-giving up of a team as I’ve ever seen. They just kept coming at us. I thought we had really good second and third quarters.”
Sophomore Wes Berg led the team with seven goals and posted his seventh career hat trick before the end of the first quarter. With those seven goals, Berg was able to tie DU’s Division I single-game record, set by current associate head coach Matt Brown during his time playing for the Pioneers.
“It’s just nice to get the win,” said Berg. “A lot of those goals were just tap-ins because Eric Law beat his guy or [Jeremy] Noble and Cam [Flint] drew a lot of attention, and I just kind of slipped into the middle. It’s nice to score a bunch of goals, but its even better to get the win.”
Also scoring a hat trick was sophomore Eric Adamson, while senior Eric Law and junior Jeremy Noble added two goals each. Senior Colin Scott tallied a career-high of seven assists.
“I thought we were really on top of our game offensively,” said Tierney. “There was a lot of unselfishness out there, we had a lot of assists, and guys were just dodging hard and moving the ball a lot.”
Law scored first for the Pioneers in the first minute of the game. At the end of the first quarter, the score was tied at five. By halftime, Denver was up 10-7.
“We came out strong for the first time, and then we started to kind of let up,” said Berg. “We let in a couple, but throughout most of the game we carried the play, and then we started to slow down.”
Denver put up a total of three goals in the third quarter and one more at the start of the fourth. During the fourth period, the Quakers shot back with four straight goals to come within two of the Pioneers at 14-12.
A crucial save came in the final two minutes by junior goalkeeper Jamie Faus, who switched in for the second half. Faus made a total of nine saves in the second half.
“Jamie came in and did a really good job, especially in the third quarter,” said Tierney. “That save he had was a huge save; had they gotten one there and got the score within one goal, and had the momentum facing off, it might have been a different story.”
Senior Chase Carraro was absent from the field for his fourth straight game, recovering from a knee injury. In the meantime, senior Chace Calkin is filling in for Carraro.
“Chace has certainly done a great job, not just winning a certain percentage, but stopping the other team from getting fast breaks; that’s so important in our face-off game,” said Tierney. “We’re thrilled with where we’re at with arguably the best face-off guy in the country on the side with an injury.”
Up next, the team will hit the road to take on the No. 13/16 Ohio State Buckeyes (4-0) on Saturday.
In their recent game against Penn State, the Buckeyes came back from a six-goal deficit at halftime to beat the Quakers 10-9 in overtime. Senior Logan Schuss leads the team with 12 goals this season, and he scored two of them against Penn State.
Sophomore Jesse King is second in goals with 11, and he scored his third hat trick of the season against Penn State.
