Men's Lacrosse Release 5.19.16

CENTER VALLEY, Pa. -- Loyola University Maryland and the United States Naval Academy prepare for the NCAA Men's Lacrosse Quarterfinals, after becoming the first two teams in Patriot League history to capture postseason wins in the first round in the same season.

Patriot League Quick Notes
* Navy head coach Rick Sowell owns a 3-2 record against Brown, playing all five contests when he was the head coach at Dartmouth.
* Loyola's and Towson's stadiums are just six miles a part in Baltimore, but the two teams will play more than 400 miles from its campuses on Sunday.
* Loyola and Navy made Patriot League history by becoming the first two men's lacrosse teams to both earn wins in the NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship first round.
* The Navy-Brown game on Saturday will air on ESPNU, while the Towson-Loyola game will broadcast on ESPN2 on Sunday. Both game times are slated for 2:30 p.m.

Patriot League Notes
No. 15 Navy Travels to No. 5 Brown
Navy made its 27th appearance in the NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship -- first since 2009 -- with a 13-10 win over No. 3 Yale and will look to continue its run against No. 5 Brown at Brown Stadium in Providence, R.I. on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. The Midshipmen and Bears will meet for just the fourth time in the programs' histories, though they have not played each other since May 14, 1994 -- Brown defeated Navy in the opening round of the NCAA tournament, 12-5. The Midshipmen hold the slight series advantage at 2-1, which includes the first meeting between the two teams in 1931 and a postseason win in Annapolis in 1987. Saturday's meeting will mark the first matchup for head coach Rick Sowell at the helm of the Navy program, as he went 3-2 against the Bears when he was the head coach at Dartmouth.

No. 7 Loyola Readies for Round Two with No. 10 Towson
Sunday's contest between the Greyhounds and Tigers will mark the second time this season that the pair will meet. It will also go down in the books as the 59th meeting all-time, which dates back to 1959, between the two lacrosse teams and second in NCAA Championship play. Towson claimed the first postseason matchup on May 12, 1996 with a 16-11 victory. The rivalry game is slated for a start time of 2:30 p.m.

Potential Patriot League Milestone on the Horizon
A win on Saturday and/or Sunday would make Loyola/Navy the third Patriot League team in any sport to advance to a national semifinal. The previous instances both came in the 2003-04 season when Colgate made it to the FCS national title game in the fall and Navy advanced to the men's lacrosse championship in the spring. The Greyhounds and Midshipmen are the 17th and 18th Patriot League teams to make the quarterfinals in any sport, with eighth in men's lacrosse, seven coming in football, two in field hockey, and one in women's lacrosse.

Loyola, Navy Make Patriot League History with NCAA First Round Wins
The 2016 season marked the fifth time in history that the Patriot League sent two or more teams to the NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship, since sending its first team -- Army West Point -- in 1993. Loyola and Navy became the first two teams in League history to win first round games in the same season when both programs won last weekend -- against No. 9 Duke and No. 3 Yale, respectively.

2016 NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship
Quarterfinal - Saturday, May 21 - Brown Stadium - Providence, R.I.
No. 15 Navy Midshipmen (11-4, 7-1 PL) at No. 5 Brown Bears (15-2, 6-0 Ivy), 2:30 p.m.
Last Meeting: Brown 12, Navy 5 (Providence, R.I., NCAA First Round) Tournament History: 1-1

Navy meets Brown for just the fourth time in the teams' program histories, with the Midshipmen holding a 2-1 advantage in the all-time series, which dates back to May 2, 1931. Saturday's contest will also mark the third time the two have met in the postseason. Navy defeated the Bears 14-6 in the NCAA opening round in Annapolis (5.13.87), while Brown posted a 12-5 victory over the Mids in the first round in Providence (5.14.94) - the most recent meeting between the programs. The two teams have only met once in the regular season.

Navy The Midshipmen made their first appearance in the NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship since the 2009 season, as No. 15 Navy made the field of 16 and was sent to No. 4 Yale in the first round. The nation's top-ranked defense held the Elis to just three goals in the second half, which paved the way for a 13-10 victory at Reese Stadium in New Haven, Conn. on Sunday, May 15. The win was the Midshipmen's first postseason victory since defeating fourth-seeded North Carolina an 8-7 loss in the first round of the 2008 season.

Senior Patrick Keena powered the offensive with six points on two goals and four assists, while sophomore duo Casey Rees and Jack Ray each tallied four points -- Rees notched four goals and Ray posted three goals and one assist. On the opposite end of the field, sophomore DJ Plumer forced three caused turnovers and picked up five ground balls, in addition to adding a goal, while senior goalkeeper John Connors made 12 saves, including six in the third quarter.

Brown The Bears made their second-straight and 14th overall appearance in the NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship and routed No. 13 Johns Hopkins, 17-8, in front of a standing-room only crowd at Stevenson-Princince Field in Providence, R.I. on Saturday, May 14. No. 5 Brown used a 7-0 run in the third quarter to seal the victory in its first home game in the NCAA tournament since 1995.

Tewaaraton Award finalist Dylan Molloy put six shots on goal, converting four of them while also adding four assists to total eight points. Molloy is now Brown's all-time leading goal scorer with 151 in his career and has a total of 114 points this season -- tied for the fourth most in a single season in NCAA history. Senior Henry Blynn also contributed four goals, while classmate goalkeeper Jack Kelly -- Brown's career leader in saves -- made 11.

Quarterfinal - Sunday, May 22 - Ohio Stadium - Columbus, Ohio
No. 10 Towson Tigers (16-2, 4-1 CAA) vs. No. 7 Loyola Maryland Greyhounds (13-3, 7-1 PL) 2:30 p.m.
Last Meeting: Towson 10, Loyola 8 (Baltimore, Md., 3.2.16) Tournament History: Towson 1-0 (5.12.96; 16-11)

The Loyola-Towson rivalry is the most played series in the history of both institution's men's lacrosse programs. Sunday's game will be the 59th all-time meeting between the two, dating back to 1959 -- the first year of intercollegiate lacrosse at Towson. The pair met earlier this season at Ridley Athletic Complex, where the visiting Tigers handed the Greyhounds their first loss of the season, 10-8, which also snapped Loyola's eight-game winning streak in the series.

Loyola The Greyhounds made their 23rd all-time appearance in the NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship -- 21st as a Division I program (1982) -- and are 12-21 all-time in the postseason tournament -- 12-19 at DI. Loyola returns to the NCAA tournament after a two year absence, last appearing in 2014 in a first round 13-6 loss to Albany.

Opening their postseason play at home -- playing Duke for a second time this season at Ridley -- freshman Pat Spencer went right to work for the Greyhounds, scoring the first goal of the game to spark a 3-0 run by the home team. It proved to be enough to keep Loyola in front of the Blue Devils the rest of the way, en route to a 16-11 victory. Spencer finished with eight points from three goals and five assists, while senior Zach Herreweyers tied his career-best of six goals. Freshman goalkeeper Jacob Stover continued to shine in net, making a career-high 16 saves.

Towson The Tigers made their 13th appearance in the NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship and posted arguably one of their best performances of the season with a 10-9 upset over No. 2 Denver -- the 2015 NCAA National Champions. Towson forced the Pioneers to turn the ball over 14 times while only committing seven miscues.

With 5:24 left to go in the first half, the Tigers pulled out to a 5-1 lead before Denver closed the gap to a two goal difference at the break. Towson still held a two-goal lead, 7-5, at the end of the third, but the Pioneers evened the score with 11:35 on the clock in the fourth quarter. Three-straight goals, over a span of eight minutes and 28 seconds, put the Tigers ahead 10-7 with 1:39 left in regulation. Denver scored twice with under a minute to play, but the Towson defense hung on to secure the victory. Senior Spencer Parks led the Tiger offense with four goals and two assists, while junior duo Joe Seider and Mike Lynch each posted a pair of goals. On the other end of the field, senior goalkeeper Tyler White made 13 saves.