College Crosse Roundup: Virginia SURVIVES Manhattan; Brown, UMass Lowell, Mercer provide upsets

The Virginia Cavaliers survived an upset threat from the Manhattan Jaspers tonight. You might need to reread that sentence a few times. Virginia didn’t look too good, but they managed a win.

Below is today’s Big Board with all of today’s results, box scores, and winning team recaps. Clicking on any box score will take you to that game’s box score. Clicking on the recap cell will take you to that team’s recap.

Game Recaps

• At the beginning of the day, I did not anticipate even recapping the Virginia-Manhattan game. But that’s why they play the games. The Jaspers, somehow, played to a loss, as was expected. But the margin of victory and amount of goals were the biggest surprises. Earlier in the day, Lax Vegas Lines had UVA as a nine goal favorite with an over/under set at 20. So much for that, because Virginia only won by three, and the total amount of goals were 13. Ian Laviano and Matt Moore each had two goals, and Michael Kraus added a goal and an assist. True freshmen scored six of the eight Cavalier goals in this one, including this beauty from Jackson Appelt:

Manhattan had balance scoring all around, but could not convert on offense at times. They committed 13 turnovers overall, and made simple mistakes that may have cost them possible scoring chances throughout the game. But it was goalie Michael Zingaro whose 18 saves kept the Jaspers in this one.

This should be a wake up call for Virginia to get their game together before Saturday against Stony Brook. Even though they’re on Spring Break, it does not mean they can take things easy.

• Despite a slow start down 5-0 in the second quarter to Villanova, Brown got hot at the right time, outscoring the Wildcats 7-2 in the second half en route to a 12-9 upset victory on the Main Line. Luke McCaleb scored a hat-trick with two assists, and defenseman Jake Miller put up a pair of goals and an assist. Phil Goss was a brick wall in goal, stopping 17 shots. Danny Seibel, Devin McNamara, and Colin Crowley each had two goals for the Wildcats, and freshman Keegan Khan added a goal and three assists in the loss. Villanova has a big game on Saturday when they travel to take on the Penn Quakers at Franklin Field.
• UMass Lowell led Providence, 9-3, at halftime. But the Friars went on an offensive streak of their own, tying the game up at 2:03 left in regulation thanks to Joshua Keller. But, that’s when Austin Lane came to play, scoring his third of the day with five seconds to go:

That Year 4 bump is no lie. And the River Hawks know it. UMass Lowell have played in five games this season, all of which have been decided by a goal.

• Shoutout to the Mercer Bears! Even though they eliminated me from the College Crosse Reverse Survivor Pool, they beat Delaware in a good upset victory, 10-8. Pascal Coombs had a hat-trick, while Matt Quinn added a pair of goals and assists, and Nate Patterson contributed with two goals and an assist of his own. But the highlight of the night came from Mikey Ewing’s long goal:

Despite four-point performances from Charlie Kitchen and Bryce Reid, the Blue Hens could not rebound from Saturday’s one-goal loss to Villanova. They should be fine against Delaware this weekend.

• Elsewhere, Fairfield used a six-goal second quarter to beat Quinnipiac, 9-6. Jack Brennan scored a hat-trick to go along with two assists, and goaltender Sean McKee made 13 saves.

• The Colgate Raiders blew an 8-2 first quarter lead to the Hobart Statesmen to give Hobart the 12-11 win. The Statesmen scored six of the game’s final seven goals in 11:17 of game time. Justin Scott scored four times during that span, but he also added two more goals toward his season total. Chris Aslanian had a hat-trick with an assist in the win as well.

• Albany update: They won 19-8 over UMass. Connor Fields had five goals and seven assists midway through the third quarter before his day was done, and Tehoka Nanticoke scored five goals as well to go along three assists. The Great Danes also did this:

• Finally, Penn took care of Navy easily, 11-3. It was a bleh game from the stats stream (since there was no visual stream for the game), as Kevin McGeary, Simon Mathias, and Adam Goldner each scored two goals in the win.

Three Stars

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ - Michael Zingaro, G, Manhattan: His team lost to Virginia, but you have to give credit to the senior goalie for making 18 saves in the loss. He pretty much kept the Jaspers in this game until the very end.

⭐️⭐️ - Justin Scott, A, Hobart: The majority of Scott’s six goals in the win over Colgate came in the fourth quarter, when he scored four of those goals to help the Statesmen complete a come-from-behind victory over Colgate.

⭐️ - Connor Fields, A, Albany: The senior had 12 points midway through the third quarter before being pulled for backups. He could have easily broken the single-game record for points set at 16 back in 1975. He might have more chances to do that later in the season.