The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Yale’s Ierlan planning to return for another year
TD Ierlan, a three-time AllAmerican and the most successful faceoff specialist in NCAA history, plans to return to the Yale men’s lacrosse team next spring.
His return is an enormous benefit for the Bulldogs with far-reaching national implications. It’s also a relatively stunning development considering recent rulings by the Ivy League against senior student-athletes who compete in spring sports.
Although Ierlan was considered part of the Bulldogs’ senior lacrosse class this spring, he’d never planned to graduate with classmates next week. A transfer student who attended Albany for two years, Ierlan, who arrived at Yale in the fall of 2018, still has a semester’s worth of credits to complete for a political science degree.
“Being a transfer, I didn’t have all my course credits come over from Albany,” Ierlan said Tuesday. “We were unsure if I’d be allowed to participate with the team next year. Everything was up in the air and I didn’t know anything until a couple of days ago. You never want to get your hopes up because you never really know how things are going to turn out. But they said it’s OK. Everyone who needed to verify it has verified it from their end.”
Ierlan, the first overall selection in Monday night’s Major
League Lacrosse college draft, said he spoke to “10 to 15” different administrators over the past month about his eligibility status. All agreed that he remains an undergraduate eligible for lacrosse under school, Ivy League and NCAA rules.
To fully comply with Ivy League and Yale policy, he must withdraw from school for the fall semester and re-enroll in the spring.
Yale, as a member of the Ivy League, adheres to a strict policy that prohibits fifth-year seniors or graduate students from participating in athletics.
The NCAA last month ruled it will allow an additional year of eligibility to spring athletes whose seasons were canceled in March due to the coronavirus pandemic. The policy was left up to individual schools to decide what form of relief the eligibility would take.
The Ivy League decided it would not change its guidelines. Athletic opportunities, the league said, would remain only for undergraduates. Student-athletes must complete their four seasons of sports competition during their four years of undergraduate enrollment.
Yale, along with Harvard and Princeton, also announced last month that graduating seniors could not withdraw from school to preserve athletic eligibility for next spring.
Spring senior athletes at Yale who wished to retain another year of eligibility must transfer to another school to compete. Men’s lacrosse players Jackson Morrill, Lucas Cotler and Brian Ward all entered the NCAA’s transfer portal with the intention of competing as graduate transfers.
“I’m grateful,” Ierlan said. “Obviously, I want to do it, that’s the main reason I’m coming back. But second, I’m doing it for the seniors denied that opportunity. Nearly all of the seniors throughout the country will have that chance to come back, but our seniors had it stripped from them. I want to play for them who had that taken away from them, in my opinion, unjustly.”
Ierlan’s return is a major bonus to the Bulldogs. He holds 10 NCAA records and has been the most dominant faceoff specialist the college game has ever seen. In 2019, his first season at Yale, he was a finalist for the Tewaaraton Award as the nation’s best player and helped the Bulldogs reach the NCAA championship game for a second successive season.
Yale was ranked fifth in the nation and expected to contend for a third successive trip to the NCAA’s championship weekend when the season was abruptly canceled after four games.
Five members of the senior class, including Ierlan, were taken in the MLL draft on Monday night. Morrill, one of the top scorers in Yale history, and Cotler, a talented midfielder, are being pursued by the top programs in the country.
Ierlan’s return to Yale, along with All-American defender Chris Fake, highscoring attacker Matt Brandau and one of the top freshman and incoming recruiting classes in the nation, should secure the Bulldogs’ place as a national powerhouse.
“To have TD back for another year,” Yale coach Andy Shay said. “It’s a big deal.”
In 2018, while at Albany, he set an NCAA mark by winning 79 percent of faceoffs. He won 76 percent last season at Yale and through the first four games this spring. Last season he set NCAA records for ground balls in a game (29), season (293) and career (810).
He also set faceoff records for a single-game, NCAA tournament game, single-season and career. His 26-for-26 performance at Harvard was an NCAA record for most faceoff wins without a loss in a single game.