(Photo Courtesy of Penn Athletics)

On Friday night, the Yale Bulldogs and Cornell Big Red played as even of a game as you could as for. Cornell had 35 ground balls to Yale’s 34. The Bulldogs had 17 turnovers while the Big Red had 16. Even the two goals were nearly even with Yale’s Jared Paquette making 14 and Cornell’s Chayse Ierlan making 13.

Additionally, the two sides tied in three of the four quarters of play. However, it was Yale who came out on top and earned the 14-11 victory to punch their ticket to the Ivy League Championship.

After a first quarter that left Big Red and Bulldogs all knotted at 5-5, Yale stepped on the gas. The Bulldogs outscored Cornell 3-0 in the second quarter alone before extending their run to six goals with three early third-quarter scores.

Cornell nearly pulled off a full comeback, outscoring the Bulldogs 6-1 from the 11:05 mark in the third through the 10:07 mark in the fourth quarter. During that stretch Michael Long (5G/1A) and Billy Coyle (2G) each found the back of the net twice. However, the Big Red were never able to tie things up or take the lead.

Yale’s ride made all the difference on Friday night. Holding Cornell to a 15-of-23 mark in the clearing game, the Bulldogs forced a failed Big Red clear with 8:20 remaining and less than a minute later, Leo Johnson (2G/2A) was putting the back of the net for Yale. Just over a minute after that, Matt Brandau (1G/1A) put in the final score of the game for the Bulldogs, which also came off a possession gained from a failed Cornell clear.

The Bulldogs also gained a sizable edge at the faceoff dot with Nicholas Ramsey going 17-for-26 (62%) at the dot.

Sam Handley, Patrick Burkinshaw Leads Penn Past Brown

Patrick Burkinshaw ended the day with 20 saves to anchor the Quakers’ defense. 14 of his saves came in the second half, where Penn held Brown to four goals.

On the other end, Sam Handley went off seven points (3G/4A). Dylan Gergar also had a game-high five goals.

At the faceoff dot, the two sides went a near 50-50 with Penn’s Jamie Zusi going 14-for-26 (53%) while Matt Gunty went 13-for-27 (48%).

Burkinshaw’s dominance, plus the play Handley and Gergar brought to the table, proved to be the difference as Penn defeated Brown 14-9 on Friday night to advance to the Ivy League Championship.

Penn opened the contest as best as they have any game all season, getting ahead 6-0 at the close of the first quarter. Ryan Aughavin finally put Brown on the board with 14:11 in the second quarter. That score would become one of five Bears’ goals in the second quarter as they came back to make it a one-goal, 6-5, game at the half.

However, following that back and forth first half of play, it was the second half where the Quakers did the most damage. Gergar put home the first two Penn scores of the third quarter, and his second sparked a game-ending 7-3 run for the Quakers.

A pair of man-up scores from Cam Rubin and Jack Schultz followed Gergar’s second goal of the half, putting the Quakers up 10-6. Ben Smith would then find Jack Joyce less than a minute later to make it 11-6 and seemingly put this one further out of reach.

Devon McLane (3G/1A) did all he could to bring Brown back into this contest, putting a man-up goal past Burkinshaw late in the third quarter before getting the scoring started in the fourth quarter. However, the Bears would only be able to crack Burkinshaw once more the entire game with Ryan Aughavin putting home the final goal of the contest.