College Crosse Roundup: Albany loses Connor Fields, game to Yale; Ohio State upsets Maryland, Rutgers beats Penn State

How a horn can’t get shut off, I don’t know. But it was a fun moment. And it lasted five minutes. Five. Maybe because they were so happy the top two teams in the nation went down today?

Try reading this with the horn on an endless repeat.

Game Recaps

Yale 14, Albany 6: It wasn’t a good day for Albany in any sense. The score was one thing, and we’ll get to that shortly. But maybe the bigger loss on the day was the early injury to star attackman Connor Fields.

Non-contact injuries are always brutal, but we all hope he somehow recovers in time for the NCAA Tournament. Fields just came back on Friday against Binghamton after straining his MCL. He had one assist in the loss.

As for the game, it was all Yale for the most part. Had it not been for JD Colarusso’s 19 saves, this game would have been much uglier. Ben Reeves, Lucas Cotler, and Matt Gaudet scored hat-tricks, while John Daniggelis scored a pair of tallies. Defensively, freshman Chris Fake caused four turnovers on Albany’s top attackmen on the field, first on Fields before shifting his focus to Tehoka Nanticoke. Even FOGO Conor Mackie won the draw battle over TD Ierlan, going 13-of-21 from the face-off X.

Nanticoke was held to no points on nine shots while Sean Eccles recorded a hat-trick on 10 shots. This was going to be a big game for their RPI ranking, as the America East Tournament won’t help them at all. Yale looks like a Championship Weekend caliber team, but we’ve said this before and the Bulldogs have been bounced in the First Round for the past few seasons.

Ohio State 12, Maryland 10: Hey it looks like the Buckeyes are back! And Ohio State got things started right from the start with a 3-0 run from Jack Jasinski and Colin Chell. They got a 4-0 run and another 3-0 in the second half en route to a big win over the Terps. Jasinski scored one more time but also added five assists while Chell scored two of his four total goals in the first quarter, and Jackson Reid added a hat-trick. Justin Inacio went 17-of-26 from the face-off X against Justin Shockey and Austin Henningsen for the majority of the game.

Connor Kelly scored four times with an assist and Logan Wisnauskas added a pair of his own.

There’s still a path for the Buckeyes to make it to the NCAA Tournament. But it’s not the brightest path. More than likely, they’ll need to beat Rutgers to get into the Big Ten Tournament and most likely will need to win the entire tournament to play further into May. But today’s game as well as their previous games for the last two weeks are promising.

Rutgers 11, Penn State 8: The Scarlet Knights won a big game when they needed to, even though it was at home. But this helped the Scarlet Knights and their at-large resume, where Penn State probably has to win the Big Ten Tournament in order to get in. The Nittany Lions got off to a good start, scoring the game’s first two goals from Kevin Hill and Tanner Peck. But the Scarlet Knights ended the half on a four-goal run to give them a four-goal lead they’d hold onto for the entire game, despite Penn State making things interesting in the third and fourth quarters.

Christian Mazzone and Kieran Mullins scored three times, while Jules Heningburg put up a pair of goals and assists. Max Edelmann made 11 saves, while Colby Kneese stopped nine shots. Mac O’Keefe scored a hat-trick as well.

Without Grant Ament and Gerard Arceri playing on a bad hamstring (even though Jake Glatz filled in very well in the second half), things got worse near the end of the game as attackman Dylan Foulds went down with an injury. The loss probably ended Penn State’s at-large chances, while Rutgers helped their case. They can get into the Big Ten Tournament with a win at Ohio State next Saturday. Penn State should be good for the conference tournament if they don’t lose to Michigan at home.

Three Stars

⭐️⭐️⭐️: Jules Heningburg, A, Rutgers - The senior came up to the task at hand when needed. He had a pair of goals and assists and did a good job against Penn State’s Chris Sabia when he was guarded against him.

⭐️⭐️: Chris Fake, D, Yale - I was thoroughly impressed by two guys in the Albany-Yale game: JD Colarusso for keeping Albany in the game for quite some time, and Fake for his play against Fields and Nanticoke. He’s also only a freshman. Four caused turnovers against a talented offense and shutting down a fellow rookie in Nanticoke ain’t no joke. I think he’s an elite defensemen and could be a First Team All-American.

⭐: Jack Jasinski, A, Ohio State - You can’t discuss Jasinski without mentioning that he’s 5-8 and from Alabama. On the road against the top-ranked Terrapins, the junior got things going with an early goal, before scoring once more and assisting on five others. The Buckeyes are back above .500 thanks in part to his outstanding play.