COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. – Trailing 5-3 in the middle of the third quarter, Ursinus closed the game on a 5-1 scoring run as the Bears (13-2) defeated Dickinson (7-9) 8-6 on Wednesday night in the Centennial Conference Men's Lacrosse semifinals at Patterson Field.

The Bears, seeded second, won their first playoff game in school history and will advance to play top-seeded Gettysburg on Saturday at 2 p.m. in Gettysburg. The Bullets defeated Washington College 23-5 in the day's other semifinal.

As for the Bears, senior attack Steve Smyrl (Glen Mills, Pa./Garnet Valley) scored three goals, while freshman midfielder Gerard Brown (Montclair, N.J./Montclair) had two goals in the win.

Dickinson got three goals from Rob Kendall, and a goal and assist from Kobi Frankel.

After Dickinson's Tucker Carney scored with 7:14 left in the third quarter to give the Red Devils a 5-3 lead, Ursinus pulled within one with 40 seconds left in the quarter on a goal by senior midfielder Jake Weber (Lititz, Pa./Manheim Township) on an assist from senior midfielder Mike Neal (Shelby Township, Mich./De La Salle).

Back-to-back goals from Smyrl, the latter coming with 12:31 left in the game on an assist from Weber, gave the Bears a 6-5 lead. Brown scored his first of the game at 11:24 to give the Bears their biggest lead at 7-5.

Following a goal by Rob Kendall from Dickinson to cut the Red Devil deficit to 7-6, Brown scored the last goal of the game with 7:50 left to give the Bears the 8-6 edge.

The run countered Dickinson's 4-0 run in the first and second quarters, that gave the Red Devils a 4-1 lead with 10:56 left in the first half.

Ursinus junior goalkeeper Brian Neff (Ephrata, Pa./Ephrata) made nine saves during the game, and kept the Bears in the game in the second quarter as Dickinson had a 19-12 edge in shots in the first 30 minutes.

Individually, Neff had five ground balls and junior faceoff specialist James Fairchild (Wayne, Pa./Malvern Prep) was 9-for-18 on faceoffs. Senior defender Cody Lefevre (Hillsborough, N.J./Hillsborough) and senior long stick midfielder Kevin Kohout (Woodbury, N.J./Gloucester Catholic) each had two caused turnovers.