PHILADELPHIA – In an NCAA tournament first-round game billed as a matchup Army’s second-ranked scoring defense vs. Penn’s third-ranked scoring offense, the Quakers offense got a huge boost from Kyle Gallagher. The Penn junior won 22 of 25 faceoffs to help the fourth-seeded Quakers defeat the Black Knights 13-8 Saturday at Franklin Field.

“That’s remarkable, just going against air in practice,” said Penn coach Mike Murphy, who became the winningest coach in program history with his 75th career win. “He’s very talented. When he’s focused and up to the challenge and he understood how important his role was with regards to how good their defense is and the pace of play and how we wanted to get a lead. He understood that 50 percent wasn’t good enough for us today, and we put a little pressure on him to do more than that, and he certainly answered the bell.”

It’s the worst faceoff deficit that Army (13-5) has endured this season and the best showing by Gallagher, ranked 13th in the country in faceoff percentage, since winning 18 of 20 against Dartmouth in the regular season for Penn (12-3).

“In every game, possessions are probably one of most important things,” Gallagher said. “The capability of me getting my team the ball as many times as I did is just helping the offense get a little more opportunity against a very, very good defense. I just try to help as much as I can to get those guys the ball.”

Simon Mathias scored four goals and had an assist, Adam Goldner and Alex Roesner registered hat tricks, and Reed Junkin made nine saves for Penn, which has won 12 straight games since losing its first three games to start the year.

“It’s been an amazing ride,” Mathias said. “I owe it all to the guys that have been really willing to sacrifice a lot to put us in the spot we’re in now. You don’t just wake up in that position. You have to sacrifice. You have to really work hard. It’s paid off.”

Army was led by Sean O’Brien, who had two goals and three assists. Nate Jones had three goals, and Matt Manown had two goals. AJ Barretto made six saves. Army forced 23 turnovers to stay in striking range, but wasn’t able to overcome a big possession disparity that it had handled well most of the season.

“One of the ways we were able to overcome it was to put the ball on the ground against their faceoff guys, and I don’t believe that happened today,” said Army coach Joe Alberici. “Gallagher was able to not only secure it, but bring it into the offensive end. We knew that was going to be a challenge, because he’s not only a great faceoff guy, but he handles the ball well too. That was one issue that we didn’t have in our favor.

“They also have some spectacular players. It seems to me that there’s some first-team All-Americans on their offense to go along with a whole bunch of really top-level players. They put a lot of pressure on us.”

Penn is tied with Penn State for the longest win streak in the country. To get there, they had to snap a five-game NCAA tournament losing streak and improve to 3-12 all-time in NCAA tournament games. They have gone from unranked in the preseason to an NCAA quarterfinals berth after winning their first tournament game since 1988. They’ll face fifth-seeded Yale in New Haven, Conn., after beating the defending NCAA champions twice already this year.

“There are a lot of challenges,” Murphy said. “No. 1, they’re a great team. No. 2, they know us very well. And No. 3, I’m sure they’re motivated, which is the rationale behind the difficulty in beating a good team three times. But we’re a good team. I’m excited moving forward.

Penn defender Mark Evanchick held Army’s leading scorer Brendan Nichtern without a point for the first time this season. There weren’t many opportunities. Nichtern eluded Evanchick early in the third quarter briefly but missed a shot wide, and Junkin saved his next attempt.

“Mark Evanchick is an excellent cover,” Murphy said. “He drew the assignment and did a fantastic job on him. We’re lucky. We’re pretty deep, so our second midfield line is pretty good, which means our scout group is pretty good. We have a young man, James Campbell, who draws the assignment of working as the other team’s best attacker in practice, and James Campbell does an outstanding job of that. He gets the crap beat out of him and keeps coming, and gets Mark Evanchick ready for whoever he’s supposed to see. He was prepared and did a very good job.”

Gallagher won five of six faceoffs in the first quarter to help stake Penn to 5-0 lead over Army. The Quakers got goals from five different players in the run.

“That was the key to the game, I felt like,” Murphy said. “And the way Army West Point is built, us getting the lead was really important. The faceoff disparity that we hoped for, us getting the lead would help us dictate the pace and the terms of the game. Whereas if they got a lead, the way they grind out possessions, that would have probably led to our team getting more impatient.”

Army had the better of the play in a 5-2 second-quarter advantage. The Black Knights scored the first two goals of the second quarter, with Manown notching his first goal and O’Brien scoring two minutes later to cut Penn’s lead to 5-2. But the Quakers responded with two straight goals to reestablish a five-goal cushion.

Goldner answered with his second goal of the game for the Quakers, and Mathias gave Penn a 7-2 lead with his first goal of the game. It gave the senior his 35th straight game with a goal, tied for the best in the country, and his 58th career game with at least one point, second best in the country.

Army scored the final three goals of the second quarter. The Black Knights scored the first two after their defense came to life and forced two turnovers. Manown scored his second goal of the game on a nice individual effort, and Nate Jones scored back-to-back goals, both off assists from O’Brien, in the final 2:09 to trim their deficit to 7-5 at halftime.

“We were still in control, not that it felt like we were in control,” Murphy said. “We had the lead the whole time. When you have the lead and win faceoffs, it does put a lot of pressure on the other team. We were fortunate to have that be a big part of our success today.”

The seven goals surrendered by Army in the first half matched their highest total allowed in any of their last four complete games. Gallagher won 11 of 13 first-half faceoffs.

Penn sent one shot off the crossbar and another off a post before Mathias came up with a great individual effort to work his way inside and deposit his second goal four minutes into the third quarter.

Mathias made a great feed to a wide-open Goldner in the middle for his third goal of the game and a 9-5 Penn edge with 5:09 left in the third quarter. Four of Mathias’s five points came in the second half, though he was marked by Patriot League Defensive Player of the Year Johnny Surdick.

“I sort of let the game came to me,” Mathias said. “We started off hot on the scoreboard, but it took us a little bit to get into the flow of things.”

O’Brien continued to carry Army as he came around the cage and slipped it by Junkin to give the Black Knights their only goal of the third quarter.

Both teams tried long shots that Army’s Barretto and Penn’s Junkin saved, and the Quakers added to their lead after Junkin’s save, as BJ Farrare found Mathias, who whistled one by Barretto for a 10-6 lead going into the fourth quarter. Gallagher had won 16 of 18 faceoffs going into the fourth quarter.

“It certainly makes it hard for them to come back,” Murphy said. “We talked about that as a team, starting fast was important. If you start fast and win faceoffs, it makes it challenging to come back.”

Farrare slid to Nichtern on Army’s first possession of the fourth quarter and caused a turnover, but gave it right back to Army. Junkin came up with his ninth save to give it back to Penn again, but the Quakers’ 20th turnover gave Army another chance.

“It’s different types of turnovers,” Murphy said. “High-risk, high-reward turnovers are OK, like Sean Lulley trying to throw the ball to the crease. But the shoddy perimeter exchanges, it’s things like that we want to clean up for next week.”

Army’s Miles Silva fought for the ball after Junkin made the first save and gave the Black Knights some momentum with his hustle goal to cut it their deficit to 10-7 with 9:16 still to play. Army won the ensuing faceoff – a huge boost at that point – then won a 50-50 ball in their offensive zone that O’Brien sent to Jones for this third goal 40 seconds later to cut their deficit more.

“Anybody that was watching that saw a tremendous effort and probably should be very proud that these guys will be fighting for us someday, serving their country,” Alberici said. “They played their hearts out as they have all year.”

Penn won the next faceoff, but Army caused another turnover and had a shot to make it a one-goal game before Junkin saved the shot and Penn turned it right into offense when Roesner scored his second goal of the game in transition as the Black Knights substituted.

“To have a guy in the net who can do that game in and game out is really special, because you never feel out of the game and you always feel like you can make the stop,” Mathias said. “His ability to save the ball and get it out instills a lot of confidence in the offense to do our job on the other side of the field and put another score on the board.”

Penn sealed the game with smart offense over the final minutes. Mathias cut to goal and took a great feed from Dylan Gergar for his fourth goal of the game to help put the game away. Roesner scored his third goal of the game on an open net to send Penn into the quarterfinals.

It will be the third meeting of the year with Yale. The Quakers beat the Bulldogs 13-12 in triple overtime during the regular season and 12-11 in the Ivy League championship gamee. It lines up two of the top players at the faceoff X in Gallagher and Yale’s TD Ierlan, who won 31 faceoffs in the Bulldogs' convincing first-round win over Georgetown.

“Any time I get to go against another good faceoff guy, I’m excited,” Gallagher said. “He’s obviously very good. He’s up for the Tewaaraton Award. I’m just looking forward to getting after him again and hopefully getting another good win against Yale.”