Freshmen Feen-oms

Within one week of becoming head lacrosse coach at Penn in the summer of 2009, Mike Murphy was in the Feeney household to recruit.

Murphy was on the trail of Brian Feeney, a top goaltender prospect being touted by the likes of Harvard and Georgetown.

“It just so happens that Brian’s brother, Danny, was one of the better faceoff guys in the state of New Jersey,” Murphy said. “That all seemed like a pretty obvious target.”

Both playing cornerstone positions, the brothers from Summit, N.J., were a two-for-one deal that rounded out a stellar freshman recruiting class for the second-year coach.

After lettering three years in football and co-captaining their high school lacrosse team, the Feeneys were ready to follow in the footsteps of their two older brothers and play collegiate lacrosse at the Division I level.

While Brendan Feeney captained the 2009 Lehigh squad, Kevin played four years at Washington and Lee.

Not surprisingly, it was the influence of their older brothers that set the twins’ lacrosse careers in motion.

“[Our brothers] wanted someone to shoot on, so they asked one of us to be goalie and we both wanted to — this is when we were in preschool,” Danny said. “We played rock, paper, scissors to see who the goalie would be. It was [Brian], so I became a middie.”

Brian’s training as a goaltender began as a trial by fire. He first practiced without pads or a real goalie stick, being put at his brothers’ mercy.

“[They would] throw me in the net and rip shots at me … that’s how it started,” Brian said.

With Brian now representing the Red and Blue between the pipes and Danny taking every faceoff so far this season, the Feeney twins have become indispensable for the No. 18 Quakers (3-2, 0-0 Ivy).

The Red and Blue will need all the help they can get from the two freshmen when they face No. 11 Princeton (1-3, 0-0 Ivy) this Saturday at Franklin Field.

But in the years since their backyard practices, the twins’ game has been refined. While Danny leads the Quakers with 22 ground balls, Brian has posted a 7.15 goals-against average — good enough for 13th in the nation.

“Those are two of the more difficult positions to adapt to in the college game,” Murphy said of the goalie and draw control specialist roles.

Murphy added that, apart from the playing field, both are similar in personality.

“They’re confident but in a very unassuming way,” Murphy said. “I think that kind of quiet determination that they bring to their everyday lives they also bring to the lacrosse field, and it’s part of what makes them good.”

The Feeneys agree with their coach about their similar demeanor, and there are few distinctions between the two freshmen — few, not none.

“I’m better-looking,” Danny quipped.

Looks aside, the journey begins tomorrow for an Ivy League championship, a goal the Feeneys have had since arriving at Penn.

In his first Ancient Eight contest, Brian hopes to bounce back from two-straight losses in which he’s given up 21 goals, as opposed to the paltry 18 shots he let through in the first three games combined.

As has been the case since high school, Brian will depend heavily on the faceoff work of Danny, his older brother—just 26 minutes older, to be exact.

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