Meet the 15 Teams Joining Men’s Hockey in the 2026 NCAA Tournament
The Sun preview the 2026 NCAA Men's Hockey Tournament field.
The Sun preview the 2026 NCAA Men's Hockey Tournament field.
Cornell took a shocking 3-2 loss in the first game of ECAC playoffs in Lake Placid. The Sun breaks down what went right — and what went wrong — in the Red's first neutral-site match of the postseason.
The Tigers will be highly motivated to beat Cornell, with the Red beating the Tigers twice in 2025, including in the Ivy League championship. But this is not new for Cornell. The Red played Albany, Richmond and Penn State twice each in 2025, coming out on top in the most important of those games, the NCAA tournament.
“For us, more or less, it just shows that there's a consistency with building a program. We’re hoping that have a crack at it every year. You want your guys to have a crack at it every year, right? And to say that you're going to win it on a regular basis is tough.”
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Senior catcher Lauren Holt is charging up the program home runs and total bases leaderboards. Sophomore infielder Emma Harshberger is heating up at the plate. And the Red’s pitching — which has finished in the bottom half of the Ivy League for three consecutive seasons — finally looks competitive.
No. 8 men’s hockey will face off against Princeton at 7 p.m. on Friday in the ECAC semifinals at Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid, New York.
The Red finished with a total score of 48.000 on vault. Rothstein was the leadoff for the event and despite her performance on bars, she posted a strong score of 9.550. Once again, senior Cami Whitaker had the highest score of 9.775 with freshman Grace McLean following with a 9.625.
On defense, junior goalkeeper Matt Tully bounced back from his tough start against Penn State, saving 10 shots and holding Brown to eight goals in his time in the cage. Sophomore goalkeeper Tim Piacentini also saw time, saving three of the four shots faced.
“From this way out, baby, it's one-and-done,” Jones said. “So you gotta manage game and play properly.”
After dropping game one on Friday night and bouncing back on Saturday, the Red hung on to beat the Crimson on Sunday, ending Harvard’s season and capping off an impressive 15-3 record at Lynah Rink.
“It was a good version of ourselves tonight,” said head coach Casey Jones ’90. “Pretty complete game for us, good response by our guys in terms of some urgency.”
After a disappointing series opener the night before, No. 9 men’s hockey came to play in game two of the ECAC quarterfinals best-of-three with Harvard.
With two minutes left, senior guard Jake Fiegen, who led the team with 23 points, drained a three-pointer to cut the deficit to seven. The Red needed a stop — and got just that.
“I think we just have to be better as a team collectively. I didn't think we were as connected as we need to be in the way we play. So we just got to be better tomorrow.”
“You can't sleep on Cornell, because if you do, they're going to put you in a bind,” Jones said. “They're going to get you in trouble, they're going to knock down shots and get confidence."