Wake Forest Stun UNC, Penn State Win It With 2.2 Seconds Left: Friday’s College Chaos

Friday night in American college hockey, and it delivered the lot: a rivalry upset, a last-gasp winner, a double-overtime epic and a shootout.

No. 10 Wake Forest 4, No. 9 North Carolina 3. The big one, at Karen Shelton Stadium in Chapel Hill. Mia Schoenbeck scored a hat trick, all three of them drag flicks from penalty corners, the third in the 57th minute standing up as the game-winner. Bianca Rees-Gibbs got the other for the Demon Deacons. Carolina had their chances: Ryleigh Heck scored twice and Coco Courtright once, but Wake keeper Ruby Butterfield made four saves and the visitors walked out of Chapel Hill with the kind of win that reorders a conference. When a corner battery clicks like that, there’s not much a defence can do except foul less.

No. 19 Penn State 1, No. 13 Indiana 0. This one was decided with 2.2 seconds left in the third quarter. Lara Pyle converted the penalty corner, assists to Cam Standish and Lilly Holmes, and Aby Deverka’s shutout did the rest. It’s Penn State’s eighth straight win, and Indiana will be sick about it: they had an apparent equaliser wiped off on review in the third. Margins don’t get thinner.

Rutgers 4, No. 6 Iowa 3 (double overtime). The game of the night in Iowa City. Rutgers led through Olivia Fraticelli’s eighth-minute opener, Iowa flipped it with Frederique van Cleef in the 44th and two from Dionne van Aalsum in the 49th and 51st, then Laura Loycke (43′) and Ella Gandy (53′) dragged it back for the Scarlet Knights before Frederique Vernooij won it in the second overtime. Iowa outshot Rutgers 30-12 and still lost. Rutgers keeper Emily Nicholls made a career-high 16 saves and stopped a penalty stroke at 68:57. Some nights the keeper just decides.

No. 14 Syracuse 3, Stanford 2. Moved up to a 4:30pm start at Coyne Stadium, and worth the early trip. Hattie Madden and Aubrey Turner scored for the Orange, Taylor Bigbie’s corner with 7:26 left won it, and Stanford’s goals from Liv Martin and Star Horlock weren’t quite enough. Syracuse needed that one at home.

Davidson 6, Mercyhurst 0. The rout of the night in North Carolina. Matilda Collins and Lourdes Wolf scored two each, Emilia Ostos added two of her own eighteen seconds apart in the third, and Mercyhurst keeper Victoria Campana still made 20 saves, which tells you how one-sided the traffic was. Davidson move to 9-8, and for the first time since 2011 two Wildcats have double-digit goals: Collins has 11, Wolf has 10.

Elsewhere: No. 18 Louisville beat No. 15 Virginia 1-0 in a shootout on Senior Day in Charlottesville, Emily Young making eight saves plus two in the shootout while Virginia outshot them 16-3. No. 16 California won 2-1 at Boston College, Holly Pears scoring with 21.2 seconds left after a review stood, and Liz Klompmaker’s equaliser was her 13th of the season. Ohio State beat Michigan State 4-0 for a season-high four goals. Drexel beat Northeastern 3-2 in Philadelphia, scoring on a corner as time expired. William & Mary put five past Hofstra, three of them in an 8:35 span of the third quarter. No. 3 UConn finished the Big East regular season undefeated with a 3-0 win at Old Dominion, and No. 12 Liberty beat Temple 4-0 to lock up a Big East Championship berth. Stonehill edged Rider 2-1 in a shootout, Siena De Roeck with the stroke and two shootout goals.

What it means

The polls are going to be busy on Tuesday. Northwestern already beat No. 1 Maryland on Thursday, and now Iowa and UNC have lost too. Wake Forest and Penn State are the weekend’s big climbers, and Rutgers just announced themselves as the team nobody wants in November.

Sunday’s slate is even bigger. We’ll have the full preview shortly.

Related: Northwestern Rip No.1 Maryland Apart in the Fourth: Bent-Cole’s Hat-Trick Seals 4-2 Win in the Game of the Season, Big Ten Honours: Gaitan Beats Michigan Twice Over, Tromp Scores Like a Forward From Defence, Wednesday in the Colleges: Fragassi’s Golden Goal, a 29-Save Night in a Losing Cause