LAS VEGAS – There was no holiday hangover in Sin City for the Cornell men's hockey team.
 
In its first game action in four weeks, the Big Red executed a near-perfect dismount from its annual midseason hiatus with a resounding 5-2 victory over Ohio State in Friday's semifinals of the Fortress Invitational at T-Mobile Arena. Freshman forward Ben Berard scored twice, and freshman forward Matt Stienburg added his first collegiate strike in the Cornell men's hockey team's 5-2 victory over Ohio State in a match-up of top-10 teams.
 
The victory pushes Cornell (11-1), which is ranked second in both the USCHO.com and USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine polls, into the tournament's championship game against 14th-ranked Providence at 5:30 p.m. PST on Saturday. The rematch of the 2019 NCAA East Region final precedes the consolation game, which pits Ohio State (12-5-2) – ranked sixth in the USCHO poll and seventh in the USA poll – against Army West Point.
 
Cornell is the only team in the field that eschewed playing a game or two last weekend, instead opting to get in what amounted to six full practices before competing in the desert with three fellow ranked teams – a rare brag for an in-season tournament. Any concerns about how quickly the Big Red could acclimate to game speed again were quashed early in Friday's game. After all, it's hard to be sleepy in Vegas, and it was unlikely Cornell would sleep on the quality of its opponent – the Big Ten's highest-ranked team entering the weekend and reigning regular-season champion.
 
"We watched them on video, and they're just really, really solid," said Mike Schafer '86, the Jay R. Bloom '77 Head Coach of Men's Hockey at Cornell. "So we knew we had to be strong around the front of our net. … I think at times we gave up some sticks in front, but for the most part I think we cleared out rebounds. It's a big part of their game. There was a little rust coming from a month off … then I thought we caught our wind and got going a little bit."
 
That little bit of rust was best demonstrated in the final half of the first period, when the Buckeyes had some of their best chances to draw even after Berard's first goal in the game's eighth minute. The Big Red was actually outshot for the game, with junior goaltender Matthew Galajda making a season-high 30 saves to earn the victory. Half of those stops came in the first period alone.
 
But what Cornell was yielding in quantity, it made up for in quality – or a lack thereof. Though most of Ohio State's chances came while the game was still close, the majority of those shots came from an angle. According to the official shot chart, just five of the Buckeyes' 20 shots through two periods came from inside the faceoff dots. Galajda was impenetrable from there.
 
"Matty was really strong on net front. … A lot of times he controlled rebounds," Schafer said. "I thought a couple times they had big stabs at it, but he's so strong down low that he was up to the challenge."
 
Meanwhile, Cornell did what it's largely done to get to its current standing of national leader in winning percentage (.917). After scoring the first goal for the 10th time in 12 games this season, the Big Red expanded the lead in the second period. Stienburg's redirection of a point shot from freshman defenseman Travis Mitchell provided the second goal, then diligent work on the forecheck by junior forwards Cam Donaldson and Brenden Locke set up Berard's second strike and a 3-0 lead late in the stanza.
 
Junior forward Tristan Mullin pushed the lead to four with the Big Red's second power-play goal of the night, ending an 0-for-18 slump on the man advantage dating back to November. Ohio State countered just 24 seconds later off a turnover in front of the Cornell net to break up Galajda's shutout bid, but senior forward Noah Bauld capped the victory with an empty-net tally – his first goal of the season. Cornell became just the second team to hang five goals on Ohio State this season, and its victory Friday snapped Ohio State's seven-game unbeaten streak. The Buckeyes then tacked on a six-on-four goal with 66 seconds left on a goal-mouth scramble.
 
In addition to Berard, three other players had multiple points for the Big Red. Donaldson, junior defenseman Alex Green and sophomore Michael Regush had two assists apiece. Berard now has seven points in his last seven games.
 
With the game ending at nearly 11 p.m. local time and three hours later in Cornell's home time zone, the next challenge will not only be Providence, it will also be a relatively quick turnaround.
 
"I talked to our guys right (after the game) about it's like 2 o'clock in the morning right now ... and we've got to get going and take care of things and get back to the hotel and get some rest for tomorrow afternoon's game," Schafer said.

The Big Red's Lineup:

How The Goals Were Scored:

Cornell's 1st Goal
1st period, 7:20 (pp)  •  Berard 2 (Donaldson, Kaldis)  •  Cornell 1, Ohio State 0
•  Working on the man advantage, Kaldis and Locke played catch high in the zone before Kaldis zipped a pass to to Donaldson positioned off the post to Nappier's right. Two more touches, and it was in the net. Donaldson one-timed a pass to Berard stationed in the slot, and Berard finished by ripping a shot over Nappier's glove.

"That goal (Berard) scored tonight was awesome, because we talked all week about how hard it is to get in the middle on them on their penalty kill," Schafer said. "They've got great penalty-killers, and it's really, really difficult. If you're going to get it in there, you'd better one-touch it in there. And that's exactly what happened from Yanni (Kaldis) down to Cam to Benny. It was just a great play."

 
Cornell's 2nd Goal
2nd period, 3:00  •  Stienburg 1 (Mitchell, Green)  •  Cornell 2, Ohio State 0
•  The Big Red dumped the puck into the Buckeyes' zone, where Nappier retrieved the puck behind the net. With Zach Tupker closing hard on the forecheck, Nappier rung the puck around the glass to his left, but past his teammate. That allowed Green to keep the puck in the zone at the right point, where he turned a puck toward Tupker and the Ohio State net. A defenseman blocked the shot, but it went straight to Mitchell on the left point. He put the puck back on net, where it was tipped by Stienburg on the inside left hash mark before sliding through Nappier's legs.
 
Cornell's 3rd Goal
2nd period, 18:07  •  Berard 3 (Locke, Donaldson)  •  Cornell 3, Ohio State 0
•  On a pass from one blue line to the other, Locke tipped the puck into the corner to Nappier right. After Locke tied up one Ohio State defenseman, the other swooped in to take the puck and try to skate behind the net. But Donaldson got his stick to it, creating a turnover. Locke then swept the puck toward the top of the crease, where Berard was free to smash in his second goal of the night.
 
Cornell's 4th Goal
3rd period, 7:22 (pp)  •  Mullin 3 (Regush, Green)  •  Cornell 4, Ohio State 0
•  Working on the man advantage, the Big Red set up Regush for a shot from an angle deep in the left circle. Nappier made the save, but the rebound bounced into the low slot for Mullin to sweep into the wide side of the net.
 
Ohio State's 1st Goal
3rd period, 7:46  •  Jennings 2 (Leslie)  •  Cornell 4, Ohio State 1
•  A Cornell defenseman attempted an aerial pass across the slot, but a forechecking Jaedon Leslie tipped it out of mid-air. The puck ended up directly in the path of Matthew Jennings, who skated down the slot on a mini-breakaway, tucking in a shot around Galajda's left pad.
 
Cornell's 5th Goal
3rd period, 17:01 (en)  •  Bauld 1 (Regush, Barron)  •  Cornell 5, Ohio State 1
•  The Buckeyes pulled Nappier in favor of an extra attacker with the puck in the Cornell zone for about 30 seconds before the Big Red finally broke out with it. Barron passed from the left wall to Regush in the middle, then he kept the play going for Bauld just over the red line. Bauld converted from the neutral zone into the empty net.
 
Ohio State's 2nd Goal
3rd period, 18:54 (ea, pp)  •  Miller 3 (Laczynski, Gabriele)  •  Cornell 5, Ohio State 2
•  With Nappier again pulled in favor of an extra attacker, the Buckeyes also had drawn their second penalty of the game to create a six-on-four advantage. The shot extended for a while in the Big Red zone, culminating in a net-front scrum that saw Miller crashed from the blue line and taking several whacks at loose puck near Galajda's skates. Eventually, the puck popped into the air and was batted in for the game's final goal.