Men’s Lacrosse Reaches the Final Four

TD Ierlan wins the faceoff from Denver's Trevor Baptiste to cinch UAlbany's 15-13 victory on Saturday at Hofstra. (Photo by Bill Ziskin)

ALBANY, N.Y. (May 21, 2018) — Men’s Lacrosse is now the second University at Albany sports team to make the final four of an NCAA Tournament, and the first in program history, after Saturday’s 15-13 defeat of the University of Denver at Hofstra University.

The No. 2-ranked Great Danes, in matching up with 3-ranked Yale at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass., on Saturday (tickets available), join the 2014 Women’s Field Hockey squad as Final Four combatants. Field Hockey defeated two higher ranked teams to reach that level, where it dropped a 1-0 heartbreaker to number 3 seed UConn in the semifinals.

Head Lacrosse Coach Scott Marr called the Denver contest, only secured when faceoff specialist TD Ierlan won his last encounter with all-American Trevor Baptiste with 37 seconds to go, “an unbelievable game. Every time we were ahead, they’d storm back. They never quit, and neither did we.”

Two other UAlbany programs closed out their seasons in NCAA tourneys over the past two weeks: softball and golf. Softball travelled to Eugene, Ore., where on Thursday it dropped a 4-0 decision to the host and top-ranked team in the country, Oregon. On Friday, it was eliminated, after a 16-0 defeat at the hands of Brigham Young.

“It was a tough loss in the last game but that doesn’t take away anything that this team has accomplished this year,” said Softball Head Coach Chris Cannata of her America East champs. “I’m really proud of them and the way they battled through the entire season . . . If I look back to March, we are a totally different team, which shows how far we have come and how much we have grown. This was a very special group to coach and we will miss our seniors.”

UAlbany Golf had a difficult time in its second-ever NCAA tournament appearance, finishing 18th in three rounds of competition on May 7-9 in Tallahassee, Fla. “While we didn’t produce the scores we know that we can, we will take this as a learning experience and only build on it for the future,” said Coach Colleen Cashman-McSween. “We are a very young team with only one senior and four sophomores.”

Three other UAlbany programs remain in the hunt: Men’s and Women’s Track & Field, and Baseball. Track & Field athletes that have achieved NCAA qualifying standards will compete in the NCAA East Preliminary Championships that begin at the University of South Florida on Thursday.

Great Danes baseball opens the America East Tournament on Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. against UMBC at the University of Maine. UAlbany secured the final spot in the tournament on Sunday by defeating UMBC in the first game of a doubleheader, 3-2 in 11 innings.

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