Yale earns return trip to title game
PHILADELPHIA — Yale will defend its national title.
Freshman Matt Brandau led a torrid offensive attack with seven goals and an assist while T.D. Ierlan won 28 faceoffs as the Bulldogs blitzed No. 1 Penn State 21-17 in the NCAA semifinals, played before a crowd of 32,612 at Lincoln Financial Field.
Yale (15-3), ranked fifth, will play Virginia for the championship on Monday at 1 p.m. Virginia defeated Duke 13-12 in overtime in the day’s first semifinal.
Penn State (16-2) saw its 13-game win streak snapped. Yale is the only team to defeat the Nittany Lions this season, posting a 14-13 victory in New Haven on Feb. 20.
Yale scored 10 goals in the first quarter, which tied an NCAA tournament single-quarter record for a semifinal game. The last time a team scored that many in a quarter was in 1976, when Virginia hung 10 on Navy.
The Bulldogs scored the game’s first four goals in just over 5 minutes and extended the lead to 10-1 with 2 minutes remaining in the first, a combination of laser-precise shooting, solid ball movement and the faceoff work of T.D. Ierlan.
Seven different players scored, with freshman Matt Brandau, juniors Matt Gaudet and Jackson Morrill scoring twice each. When Morrill scored to make it 10-1, the Bulldogs had converted 10-of-13 shots on goal. Ierlan consistently got the ball back to Yale’s shooters by winning 10of-13 faceoffs in the quarter.
But Penn State, one of the most prolific offensive teams in NCAA history, managed to get itself back into the game by outscoring Yale 7-2 in the second quarter. Mac O’Keefe had three goals in the quarter while Penn State faceoff man Gerard Arceri twice won faceoffs, raced downfield and scored to bring the Nittany Lions to within 12-9 at halftime.
Yale kept the Nittany Lions at bay in the second half, using a 3-1 run at the start to extend its lead back to five. Penn State got back to within three goals at 16-13 by scoring three of the final four goals of the third quarter.
Yet it was the Bulldogs controlling the fourth quarter with defense and goaltending.