#4 Maryland – 14 (OT)
#1 Virginia – 13
Both teams had toyed around with owning the lead with neither fully committing to owning it resulting in overtime and one of the best games I imagine we’ll see all year with the bulk of the insane action coming with under 3 minutes to play in regulation and then into the overtime period.
It was Jack Koras scoring unassisted with 2:40 left in the game that gave Maryland a 13-11 lead. I kind of thought that may be the dagger as the Maryland defense had thus far done a good job all day bottling up Connor Shellenberger, Xander Dixon and company.
Less than a minute later, Thomas McConvey drew a slide dodging on a shorty and found Connor Shellenberger on the back side for an easy dunk to get UVA back to within a goal. 13-12 Maryland with 1:56 left in the 4th.
McConvey got freaky once again just 38 seconds later scoring unassisted to tie things up at 13’s. Time on the clock, just 1:18 remaining in the game. We can save the drama since you already know we’re going to OT here.
Brian Ruppel fully saved Maryland’s ass in overtime with what will probably go down as one of the craziest 3 save sequences any of us will see in a while. Evan Zinn came streaking down the field and got the initial shot off, save Ruppel. Makar turned the ball over after picking up the rebound and attempting to clear and McConvey ended up with it, put a laser into the bottom left corner, save Ruppel. Evan Zinn was on the doorstep at this point, picked up the rebound, got one more attempt, the ball glanced off a diving Ruppel’s stick and towards the cage where his leg was already above his head, his knee makes contact, ball is saved and Maryland had the groundball going back up the other way.
Ensuing possession, Braden Erksa found Daniel Kelly on the right wing off a crease/wing swap and Kelly collected the feed with his stick to the outside and laced one past Nunes for the sudden death victory.
#17 Princeton – 8
#16 Penn – 9 (OT)
The IVY had a couple of OT games this weekend, but the one that caught my eye was Penn taking down Princeton at home.
Princeton took their largest lead of the game off a man-up goal scored by Alexander Vardaro dished by Weston Carpenter with 11:30 left in the 2nd quarter. That made the score 5-2.
Penn battled back though and took their first lead of the game (other than when they led 1-0 to start the game), another man up goal, this time Ben Smith from Sam Handley, that made it 8-7 Penn with 6:06 left in the 4th quarter.
Christian Ronda would score just under 3 minutes later off a Vardaro feed to tie things up at 8 each with 3:20 left in the game. An absolute cannon, top-right cheese, no chance for Emmet Carroll to make the save. Again, you already know the drill, we end up in overtime is upon us.
Princeton had a chance to win it in OT but turned the ball over giving Penn the ball back with a chance to ice the game.
Enter Sam Handley, he dodged down the right alley on the LSM, calmly bullied his way into the 5×5 area, let it rip overhand and somehow snuck it past Gianforcaro who may have gotten a piece of it based on his reaction.
Harvard – 16 (OT)
Brown – 15
The Ivy isn’t one to disappoint as it pertains to kicking the shit out of each other. Harvard and Brown came into this game 5-5 over their last 10 meetings which made it fitting that overtime was needed to decide this one.
Harvard was down 15-14 and got a timeout with 18 seconds in the game, ball at the top left corner of the field. Sam King started with the ball, shorty guarding him, he dodged down towards the left pipe with a shorty on him, got a screen that did just enough to grant him a touch of separation and as the adjacent slide came, he hit Teddy Malone sneaking up above GLE. It took less time to get the score than it did for me to read you this summary. 13 seconds remained in the game after the score. 5 seconds had come off the clock.
Overtime dragged out in the same manner this game did in terms of the back and forth. With history hell bent on repeating itself in bizzaro fashion, this time it was Teddy Malone hitting King who was sneaking up above GLE on the right side and King snuck it past The People’s Goalie for the win.
#7 Cornell – 20
#8 Yale – 10
Yale jumped out to a 2-0 lead to start the game and things weren’t looking too bad. But then things got ugly for the Bulldogs, at home nonetheless, as Cornell went on an 8 goal run capped by CJ Kirst scoring unassisted with just 2 seconds left in the 1st quarter.
For Cornell, the route was had thanks to a total team effort that included the Big Red offense taking advantage of, and winning their one-on-one matchups. 5 of the 8 goals over the run were unassisted as Yale had a hard time stopping Cornell dodgers.
They also played bully ball on defense. Credit Dan Aburn (@dan_aburn_) for posting this on Twitter, I’m not sure who gets the official video credit, but this 17 second clip shows you what it felt like to play on the offensive side of the ball for Yale yesterday. Didn’t look like a whole lot of fun.
Listen to the audio version…
