While I don’t dive into Friday nights contest that saw Duke take down Virginia, I do go deep into Michigan’s win over #2 Maryland as that to me was the story of the weekend. Penn had a big Ivy matchup against Yale and once again the cardiac Quakers needed to show up to pull out the W. Syracuse battled back to take the lead back from Notre Dame only to see the Irish go on a monster run and take the game by a margin. We’ll talk about these three games and more in this weeks episode.

Michigan – 16
#2 Maryland – 11

Maryland figured things would probably go as planned after taking a 2-1 lead with 11:06 to play in the first quarter.  Kyle Long dodged up the left side from X and found Braden Erksa on the doorstep, easy goal.

Then things got weird.  Michigan went on a 5 goal run that started with an unassisted goal by Isaac Aronson, quick dodge up the right from X, he put his shoulder into Trader and let it rip, tied up at 2’s.

The run was capped by Josh Zawada as he got free on the crease, Peter Thompson saw him, hit him and Zawada did the rest and the Wolverines took a 6-2 lead.

Maryland would bounce back and get back to within a goal, 7-6 after Kyle Long scored with just under 3 minutes left in the first half, but Michigan would continue to hold the line and pull away by the end securing the road win over their Big Ten rival.

The story in this one wrote itself… 

Michigan’s offensive stars showed up… 
Josh Zawada (3g, 4a) and Michael Boehm (4g, 2a) both showed up in a big way, on the biggest stage. These guys don’t always show up fully, and even when they do, it’s not always at the same time. They both had monster games and that played into Michigan getting their first ever win against the Terps. 

Total team defense out of Michigan… 
Not only did the Michigan defense do an incredible job stifling the Terps offense, preventing them from scoring for long stretches at a time, but they were also perfect clearing the ball. Getting a stop is half the battle. Turning that stop into an offensive possession is the other half and almost as important. The Wolverines got it done in all areas of play on the defensive end of the field. 

Made Luke Wierman’s life very difficult… 
Justin Weitfeldt went 12 of 15 for Michigan at the dot against one of the best in the game and combined with Nick Rowlett they held Wierman to just 13 of 28 with 7 groundballs. Very few can say they’ve dominated Wierman as Weitfeldt did on Saturday. 

Tough enough in cage… 
Michigan hasn’t had a whole lot of stability in cage, but Shane Carr and Hunter Taylor each made 5 saves, combining for 10 saves vs 11 goals against. Both keepers standing tall was huge and allowed the Wolverines to continue to be aggressive and pesky against the Terps offense. 

#20 Yale – 16
#19 Penn – 17

Another incredible Ivy League matchup between Yale and Penn, and once again, the Cardiac Quakers had to show late in order to pick up a W.

Penn jumped out to a 4 goal lead early, but Yale kept clawing back and over the second quarter outscored the Quakers 7-3, eventually taking an 11-8 lead with just 6 seconds to play in the first half, Leo Johnson unassisted, nice dodge up the left side, turned around and let it rip.

Penn wasn’t quite done, and with just 6 seconds left in the first half, James Shipley picked up a groundball off a perfectly clean faceoff win, huffed the ball with all he had towards teh goal and Ben Smith caught it cleanly and buried it as time expired getting Penn back to within 2 goals.  That goal proved pivotal as Penn needed every point they got. 

After a bit of back and forth, Yale would take a 14-16 lead with 7:57 left to play off a Brad Sharp goal, a dodge to the middle of the field, he got his hands free and unleashed, beating Carroll.

Queue the 80’s montage music as Penn would score 3 unanswered goals to win this game…

The first, Robert Schain, unassisted, started as a normal alley dodge down the right, but he turned back to his left hand and let it rip, 16-15 yale.

The second, Ben Smith again, unassisted, dodging up the left side, got a step and wrapped it around his defender without looking, 16 all.

The game winner, Tynan Walsh from Casey Mulligan, with the success Penn was having dodging up the right from X, Mulligan gave it a go, saw a slide come that left Walsh alone on the backside crease, Mulligan got it to him and Walsh did the rest, Penn up 17-16.

It wasn’t over though as Yale would get a chance to tie the game that required Emmet Carroll to make a huge save on a Matt Brandau shot.  The save was had, Piper Bond picked up the rebound, retreated to the far corner of the field, huffed it as far upfield as he could and time ran out.

A huge win for Penn. Three of the Quakers four wins have been by a single goal. Penn improves to 4-4 overall (2-1 in Ivy) and Yale drops to 3-4 (0-3 in Ivy) .

So Yale will drop out of the top 20 and Penn will jump a spot or two. 

That’s 3 straight losses for Yale after starting 3-1.

#16 Denver – 6
#15 Georgetown – 13

The story of this game was perfectly put to pen by Christian Swezey of InsideLacrosse fame.  Normally I’d try to paraphrase and would write it up myself, but in this case, I’m going to read verbatim from Swezey’s piece because it perfectly illustrates the type of day the Pio’s had against the Hoya’s…

The fact that James Reilly brutalized Alec Stathakis at the dot was surprising.  Stathakis has been as steady as they come in terms of winning draws and Reilly flipped that script and dominated.  To add insult to injury, Reilly also put up a goal and an assist.  Winning 15 of 22 as a faceoff guy is usually a pretty solid stat line.  Reilly was just showing off with the 2 points.

Bowen & the Hoya’s defense held the line. Georgetown hasn’t gotten very good goalie play out of their roster thus far.  Michael Scharfenberger was solid on Saturday thanks to a defense in front of him that gave up very little in terms of space.  He made 8 saves vs 6 goals against.

Listen to the audio version…

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