UAlbany Makes Program History with Trip to NCAA Quarters

UAlbany is living up to all that preseason hype. It hasn't been easy, through injuries and a couple of losses, but the Great Danes are going to championship weekend for the first time in program history and the first time in five attempts.

The majority of attention paid to UAlbany's matchup with Denver was at the faceoff dot between TD Ierlan and Trevor Baptiste. The latter is the most accomplished at that position in the history of the sport and the former was chasing the single season record for faceoff wins.

Ierlan won the first four faceoffs of the game catapulting the Danes to a 3-0 lead and even when the battle at the dot and on the scoreboard got tighter, UAlbany never withered. Denver entered the game as the top ranked defense in the country, surrendering only 7 goals per game. The Danes more than doubled that number behind hat tricks from four different players; Tehoka Nanticoke, Kyle McClancy, Jakob Patterson and Sean Eccles.

What has been dubbed The Dane Train is still rolling and it's onto the national semifinals at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough for a rematch with Yale; a team UAlbany lost to in the regular season and a game in which Connor Fields played very little.