LEVITTOWN, N.Y. — It was just a non-league game in late February, but for the UPenn players, and especially their alumni, Saturday’s 14-13 come-from-behind overtime win over No. 11 Duke meant so much more.
That’s because the victory in the inaugural Long Island Metro Cup at MacArthur High School was literally two years in the making.
While there was somewhat of a return to normalcy for much of the college lacrosse world last year, the Quakers had to sit out the 2021 season when the Ivy League canceled the campaign amid the COVID-19 global pandemic.
So when Jack Schultz buried the winning goal with 25 seconds left in the first overtime, it set off a wild celebration on the field and an even wilder one outside Penn’s makeshift locker room at neighboring Salk Middle School.
“A big thing about our team is we really pride ourselves on being tough and resilient,” Schultz said. “We’ve had our past two seasons canceled due to COVID and stayed together as a team on campus to practice for moments like these, and we knew when a moment like this arose, there is nothing that was gonna stop us.”
A tradition that even predates Mike Murphy’s tenure as Quakers coach is the playing of Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder on the Dance Floor” in the locker room after a win. But on Saturday, the players brought the speaker outside to share in the celebration with their alums, setting off an impromptu parking lot dance party.
“Those guys are special,” junior midfielder James Shipley said. “They’ve done a lot for us these last two years, and we talk a lot about how everything we do is for the guys that came before us, the guys who come after us and the guys in our locker room. With all those guys here, it's fun to be able to enjoy that with them.”
No. 8 Penn (1-1) rebounded from a season-opening 10-8 loss to No. 3 Georgetown and had to rally in the fourth quarter to do so. Penn trailed 12-9 after Charlie O’Connor scored for Duke (5-2) with 10:32 left in regulation.
But Dylan Gerger answered with consecutive goals inside a minute — his fifth and sixth goals of the game — and Shipley tied the score at 12 with 6:56 left.
Shipley’s second equalizer was even more dramatic. Dyson Williams put the Blue Devils back in front on an assist from former Quaker Sean Lulley with 4:25 remaining, before Shipley snuck a low shot through traffic with 1.9 seconds left to send the game into overtime.
“I looked with 10 seconds, knew time was short,” Shipley said. “So, I just caught it and went. I wasn’t really thinking about the exact time but just knew I had to get it off quick.”
Penn started the extra session a man up following a Kenny Brower slashing penalty put on the board when Shipley scored. But Jake Nasso won the opening faceoff of overtime, and Nakeie Montgomery had a chance to win it for Duke, but he was denied his fifth goal of the game by Patrick Burkinshaw, his 11th save of the game.
A turnover forced by Duke defenseman William Stephenson set up the Blue Devils for another walk-off opportunity, but Lulley missed the target on a wraparound attempt as the shot clock expired.
Schultz wouldn’t miss his chance moments later.
“I just came out of the box and sort of saw a good matchup for me and wasn’t even really looking to go to the goal originally,” Schultz said. “But then got a step and just lucky the shot went in for me.”
Duke nearly doubled up Penn in the ground-ball battle (37-19), outshot the Quakers 51-35 and had a 17-12 edge on faceoffs.
But Penn dug deep, forced 17 turnovers and found a way to win a game that, perhaps because of the atmosphere from an overflow crowd of 3,500 at MacArthur or the showdown of two of the top 11 teams in the country, or maybe even just the long wait for the Quakers, felt like it was in May despite the frigid temperatures.
“We kind of knuckled down and responded to the situation. I think Duke outplayed us in a lot of ways. They probably outplayed us for 50-some minutes,” Murphy said. “They beat us in a lot of categories, but when push came to shove down the stretch, we got stops we needed, they had a couple of shot clock [violations]. But we won the last 10 minutes of the game or so, and that was the difference.”
Murphy said Penn took a step forward from last weekend’s loss to the Hoyas. But there’s still a lot of improvement to be made, which is even more encouraging for a hungry Quakers team.
“I think that’s probably 50 percent of what our offense can do. We still have guys who aren’t fulfilling their full potential yet, but I’ve a lot of faith in them,” Gergar said. “We played two games in two years, so we’ve got a lot to work on. That obviously wasn’t our best lacrosse, but it was good enough to get us a win, and that’s good enough for me today.”