UAlbany falls to Yale in semis
FOXBOROUGH, MASS. » The No. 2-seed UAlbany men’s lacrosse team saw its stellar season come to close on Saturday at Championship Weekend as the Great Danes fell to No. 3-seed Yale 20-11 in the NCAA semifinal round.
Yale started the scoring after a UAlbany turnover, as John Daniggelis dodged left to right and scored in the lower corner in the opening minutes, then scored again on the next three possessions: Jackson Morrill got around the cage and hit his shot close range, then Ben Reeves hit a bouncing shot past the keeper, then off a saved shot, Yale’s second chance went from Reeves to Matt Gaudet for the goal on the doorstep. UAlbany had a couple of possessions but Yale’s goalie held off UAlbany’s shots. Yale added two more goals in the span of a minute from Morrill and Gaudet to build the lead, then another by Reeves made it 7-0. After a save by Nate Siekierski to send UAl-
bany to offense, Sean Eccles came off a dodge and fired a shot into the net from 15 meters out. That goal pulled UAlbany to down 7-1 to Yale after one.
After Yale scored just past the opening minute of the second quarter, TD Ierlan took a faceoff win right to cage and scored on a high to low shot. Yale got the goal back after a close range shot by Joseph Sessa.
UAlbany countered again with the same Justin Reh-Eccles connection as a pass from behind the cage to Eccles in front for the right to left heave. Next possession, Connor Fields ran in front of the goal circle and scored just below the crossbar point blank. After a Yale timeout, again UAlbany took advantage of an Ierlan faceoff win with the sophomore dropping off to Jack Burgmaster for a catch and shoot score to make it 9-5 Yale.
Gaudet continued his strong shooting, hitting his next two shots on cage, each less than 10 meters away. Yale added one more goal in the closing seconds of the second quarter from Reeves to Morrill as UAlbany trailed 12-5 at the break.
Into the second half, UAlbany took advantage of a man-up situation with two goals by Connor Fields, both on long shots from straight away, to cut the deficit to five. Yale got its own man-up situation and got a goal back on a catch and shoot, then later, another man-up chance for the Bulldogs turn into a goal as Brendan Rooney got the feed on the doorstep and scored. Yale added three more goals from Reeves, including one in the final seconds of the third, giving Yale a 17-7 advantage after three quarters.
First chance into the fourth quarter, Fields pulled off a defender and got the ball to Jakob Patterson right on the doorstep straight away for a goal. Yale responded with a goal, then Ron John got a pass from Noah Taylor across the cage for a catch and shoot goal. Gaudet added his sixth goal, then a minute later, Alex Burgmaster got the pass from Fields for the fire and score. Tehoka Nanticoke added a score top shelf from the right to try to spur on a last ditch comeback, but it came up short. Yale added another goal as UAlbany fell 20-11.
Yale advances to the NCAA title game against Duke on Monday at 1:00 p.m.