Courtesy of David Schamis

To add to their two-game winning streak — after wins against Le Moyne on March 26 and Brown on March 30 — the Bulldogs earned a victory against Penn last Saturday afternoon. 

The No. 9 Yale men’s lacrosse team (7–2, 3–1 Ivy) tallied a win against the No. 14 University of Pennsylvania (7–4, 3–1 Ivy) on April 6, improving their Inside Lacrosse ranking to single digits and moving the Bulldogs into a tie with Cornell University and Penn for first place in the Ivy League. 

Midfielder Logan Soelberg ’25 started off scoring less than four minutes into the contest with an unassisted goal. Fifty-four seconds later, midfielder Max Krevsky ’25 assisted midfielder Patrick Hackler ’24 in Yale’s second goal of the quarter.

Penn answered back less than two minutes later with a goal by midfielder Griffin Scane, assisted by attackman Luke DiNola. Four minutes later, midfielder James Shipley tallied an unassisted goal to level the score.

The Bulldogs regained the lead 1:47 later when midfielder Johnny Keib ’25 scored off an assist by attackman Matt Brandau ’24. Brandau assisted attackman David Anderson ’27 less than a minute later to raise the score to 4–2. 

Shipley resumed Penn’s scoring in the second period, which was followed by two more Quaker goals, by midfielder Connell Kumar and attackman Ben Smith, both assisted by Scane. Penn’s one-point lead was its only lead of the afternoon.

The Elis then went on a scoring spree to close out the half with four new goals in six minutes. Krevsky tallied an unassisted goal, Soelber assisted Brandau, Brandau tallied an unassisted goal and Krevsky made another unassisted goal to raise the score to 8–5. 

To open the second half of the game, Penn attackman Cam Rubin scored off a Shipley assist 35 seconds into the period. Just over seven minutes later, attackman Peter Moynihan ’27 added another point for the Bulldogs. 

Rubin made another move for Penn with a man-up, scoring off an assist by attackman Tynan Walsh, but the Blue and White answered with three more consecutive goals. Brandau scored with 3:11 remaining in the period.

Yale opened the fourth and final frame with strong play: an unassisted goal by Cole Cashion ’27 and another by Anderson, assisted by midfielder Carson Kuhl ’25. 

DiNola and defenseman Tyler Kuehl each scored for Penn with 11:24 and 6:26 remaining in the contest, respectively, but the Quakers were unable to catch up to Yale and its significant lead. The Bulldogs closed out the game with a three-point lead, winning 12–9.

Both the Yale offense and defense saw strong play in last Saturday’s game; the Bulldogs outshot Penn 50–33 and edged Penn 28–19 in shots on goal. Yale also went 14-of-25 in faceoffs and had 38 ground balls, in contrast to Penn’s 16.  

Offensively, Brandau reached 316 career points by the end of the contest, tying attackman Ben Reeves ’18 for the all-time Yale record. Brandau is also only six assists away from the all-time Yale record in assists and had already broken the record for career goals on March 30 in Yale’s game against Brown. 

Defensively, the Bulldogs forced Penn into 16 turnovers, the majority in the second half. Defenseman Patrick Pisano ’26 caused one of these turnovers and had six ground balls throughout the contest. 

Yale goalie Jared Paquette ’25 made 10 saves and only allowed nine goals, the 2024 season low for Yale, throughout the contest. 

Tuesday afternoon, Yale is set to play No. 15 Boston University (7–3, 4–1 Patriot) in Boston, Massachusetts. In their past three games, the Terriers have upset No. 12 Army (8–2, 3–2 Patriot) 14–9, which was No. 1 at the time, lost 11–10 to No. 4 Duke (10–3, 0–2 ACC) on March 27 and won 22–6 against Holy Cross (2–8, 0–6 Patriot) on March 30.

Yale will also travel to Hanover, New Hampshire, on Saturday to face Dartmouth College (3–7, 0–3 Ivy) at 3:30 p.m. Both games will be streamed on ESPN+.