The first round in the 2023 Division 1 NCAA Hockey Tournament's Bridgeport regional continued a trend seen throughout college hockey on Friday.
Ohio State steamrolled Harvard, 8-1, in the first game. Then, in the second game, Quinnipiac took down Merrimack, 5-0.
Also in action on Friday was the first round of the Allentown regional. Penn State beat Michigan Tech, 8-0, before Michigan crushed Colgate, 11-1.
At the end of the day, teams that won outscored teams that lost 32-2.
Here are three takeaways from Friday's Bridgeport regional action.
Jake Wise has finally found the right fit
It’s been a long road for Jake Wise (Reading, Mass.), with some detours along the way.
He was 13 when he was named MVP of the Quebec International Pee-Wee Tournament, scoring 11 goals in six games and leading the Minuteman Flames to the championship.
Wise was 14 when he committed to Boston University. He played for USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program starting in 2016 and was drafted by the Chicago Blackhawks in the third round in 2018 before enrolling at BU.
But injuries knocked him off track and after three years with the Terriers he transferred to Ohio State in 2021.
Now, at age 23, Wise is captain of the Buckeyes and, with numerous family and friends in the stands on Friday, he put up four assists in Friday’s 8-1 destruction of Harvard. He is second on the team in scoring with 12-27-39 in 39 games.
Afterward, the smile on Wise’s face could have lit up the City of Bridgeport.
“I can’t say enough good things about Ohio State. I love it here so much,” he said.
Wise credits coach Steve Rohlik for the upward direction of his game. “His trust in me, to put me out there and let me develop, that’s a big part of it. I definitely hold onto pucks more and I’m much more confident,” he said.
“(The Frozen Four) was our goal at the beginning of the year and we’re one game away. It’s awesome.”
It's been a long journey for Mike Lombardi
Quinnipiac’s Mike Lombardi (Barrington, R.I.,) has traveled quite a distance, too, to get within a win of the Frozen Four.
From public school hockey in Rhode Island to prep at Kimball Union in New Hampshire and then to the British Columbia Hockey League before landing at Quinnipiac, where he is in his fifth season.
“It’s honestly pretty crazy. It’s hard to put into words. I believed it the whole time and I had a good core of people who believed it around me. Obviously, my parents and my family supported me and gave me every opportunity to get to this level,” Lombardi said.
MANCHESTER REGIONAL: Takeaways from BU and Cornell's wins in the first round
“And then, honestly, if you had told me that we would be here, I would probably have believed you because I envisioned it so many times. I’ve always wanted to play for these guys and they gave me the opportunity, so it’s pretty special.
“This program, this team, means everything to me. It’s been a large part of my life playing for coach (Rand Pecknold). One thing we want to do is bring a national championship to Quinnipiac and I think we have the group to do it.”
Merrimack's emotional finish
Merrimack’s loss brought an end to a season that started with the death of associate head coach Josh Ciocco in October.
Playing for each other and for Ciocco, the Warriors finished second in Hockey East – they were picked for eighth in the coaches’ poll — and made the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2011.
Understandably, head coach Scott Borek (Swampscott, Mass.) was emotional after Friday’s game.
“I don’t mind losing, I’m not emotional because we lost. I just love our team. I didn’t want to stop coaching them,” he said.
“I feel really good about the entire body of work. No one in that locker room, including the coaching staff, has ever dealt with what we dealt with and come out the other side and had a heck of a year. I am proud of the results, but it’s hard to walk into that room and know you’re not going to coach them again.”
In Borek’s 37 years as a coach, “I’ve never been around a team like that before in my life. Some of it was what we went through together but a lot of it was who we were and who those young men were. I just couldn’t be prouder.
“I saw them hold each other up. I saw them tell each other they loved each other. I think these guys have learned a lot about what it's like to be a young man and to be proud of the guy next to you and to play for him and live for him,” he said.
“I think that the lessons that Josh taught us will be with these guys the rest of their lives and this season will be, too. Not tonight, it wasn’t our night. Quinnipiac is a heck of a hockey team. But the lessons our team learned from each other and with each other, they’ll never forget and they’ll never lose.”
