Longtime Philly friends to play at Linc - for Brown

When Will Gural arrived at the Haverford School in sixth grade, classmate Henry Blynn took notice. Despite being a new kid, Gural already had a number of friends.

"Will fit in very, very well. I was like, 'Who is this chubby kid in the pink seersucker jacket that's already cooler than everyone?' " Blynn said with a laugh. "I got to know him and I noticed he wasn't as cool."

Ten years later, the two are still friends and teammates, hoping to lead Brown to an NCAA championship. The Bears (16-2) play Maryland (16-2) in the Division I semifinals at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field.

For Blynn and Gural, both 22, the most exciting part of playing in Philadelphia will be the contingent of family, friends, and high school coaches who will be in the stands.

"I was talking to Will yesterday about how cool it was that the timing works out," Blynn said. "All of our friends who haven't seen us play in college yet but watched us at Haverford can finally watch us playing live because they graduated from school and everyone is home."

"It's going to be great to play in front of my family, having my grandparents be able to see me play," Gural said. "They were able to see me play at Penn, but for them it's not always easy to get up to Providence, Rhode Island. Now it's easy."

Bears coach Lars Tiffany said he has overheard one sentence over and over again in the locker room: "We've got to make three trips to Philly this year."

This season, the team played a game at Villanova, a 19-8 win, which Tiffany said didn't draw a large crowd because it was a weekday afternoon game. The squad also beat Penn 17-6 in Philadelphia last month. A possible third trip, a ticket to the Final Four, has been in the back of the players' minds ever since.

The possibility was particularly motivating for the team's local players. That group is made up of not only Blynn and Gural but also sophomore midfielder Stephen Hudak, a La Salle graduate, who has had seven goals and one assist.

For seniors Gural and Blynn, "it's a dream come true," Tiffany said. "I'm sure Friday night we'll be at one of those two houses, the Gurals or the Blynns, having our pregame meal, because they've been phenomenal parents, hosting us every time we come down here. We're really well fed."

Gural said the pregame dinner - "a meal of champions," also known as chicken Parmesan, pasta, and Caesar salad - will in fact be eaten at his family's Haverford home on Friday night. The meal has been a staple of their pregame routine all season long. It has fueled them well so far.

Gural, faceoff specialist and midfielder, has won more than 70 percent of his faceoffs this season. He also logged 10 goals and five assists. Meanwhile, attackman Blynn has scored 50 goals and made 13 assists.

The two weren't always such confident playmakers. Blynn's mother, Janet, reminded him recently that the first time he went to a lacrosse clinic in first or second grade, he didn't take too fondly to the sport.

"She said I came home and I threw my stick on the ground and I said, 'I hate lacrosse,' " Blynn said. "She told me to stick with it."

Gural said he started playing around the same time. He never wanted to quit, but as he looked up to Haverford's varsity players, there were times he doubted whether he would ever mature enough physically to play college lacrosse.

At Haverford, their hard work in middle school and high school culminated senior year in an Inter-Ac title and a 13-8 victory over Conestoga in the Katie Samson Festival, which established Haverford as the strongest team in the state.

"Will and I both grew up in a culture at Haverford where playing lacrosse on the varsity team, those were the guys we all looked up to and it was kind of a big goal as a youngster growing up at Haverford," Blynn said. "I definitely give a lot of credit to the culture of Haverford, of being the best, being No. 1 and waking up every morning at 7 and getting better."