Ohio
Gophers men's hockey gets Big Ten sweep with 6-3 rout of Ohio State
To Gophers men’s hockey coach Bob Motzko, Minnesota’s three-goal victory over Ohio State on Friday night wouldn’t mean much if his team didn’t sweep the Buckeyes on Saturday.
His players got the message and adhered to their coach’s directive.
Second-period goals by Garrett Pinoniemi, Bryce Brodzinski and Rhett Pitlick broke open a scoreless game, and 24 saves from Justen Close enabled the Gophers to beat Ohio State 6-3 on Saturday night at 3M Arena at Mariucci in front of a crowd of 9,594. Aaron Huglen, Jaxon Nelson and Brody Lamb added third-period goals as the Gophers won their fifth game in a row and gained three points over the weekend on first-place Michigan State in the Big Ten standings.
The Gophers (14-6-4, 7-4-3 Big Ten) posted their first conference sweep of the season and remained in fourth place in the Big Ten with 23 points, one behind third-place Notre Dame. Michigan State leads with 34 points, and Wisconsin is second with 30. Minnesota will play the Spartans and Badgers on the road over the next two weekends.
“The speed limit goes up,” Motzko said.
Brothers Joe and Jake Dunlap, plus Caden Brown, scored goals for Ohio State (9-11-4, 1-11-2). Logan Terness made 24 saves for the Buckeyes, who are in last place in the Big Ten.
The Gophers took control of the game in the second, getting goals from three different lines.
Pinoniemi, a fourth-line left winger, started it 3:14 into the period. Freshman defenseman Sam Rinzel tried to stuff the puck past Terness on a wraparound. The goalie made the save but gave up a rebound that Pinoniemi pounded home for his first goal of the season.
“It felt good,” the sophomore said. “I just went to the net and tried to keep it simple.”
Brodzinski, starting at left wing instead of his usual right wing, increased the Gophers’ lead to 2-0 at 7:21 of the second. The fifth-year senior skated the puck up the ice and into the Buckeyes’ zone, sent it to Mason Nevers, who left a drop pass that Brodzinski sniped over Terness’ left shoulder.
“I just had to get it off in a hurry,” said Brodzinski, who also had two assists.
After Joe Dunlap’s goal at 7:44, Pitlick, who had a hat trick and an assist in Friday’s 5-2 win, stretched the lead to 3-1 at 17:46 of the second. Oliver Moore won a faceoff, sending the puck between his legs back to Pitlick, who one-timed a shot for his 15th goal of the season.
“Overall, I couldn’t be more pleased with our effort throughout our entire lineup,” Motzko said. “… Our guys have confidence right now.”
Huglen made it 4-1 at 5:17 of the third period. Nelson stretched the lead to 5-1 at 9:19 with a blast from the left circle.
Goals by Jake Dunlap and Brown cut the lead to 5-3 before Lamb scored into an empty net with 34 seconds left.
After a sluggish first half of the season that left the Gophers with a 5-4-3 conference mark, the team believes it’s finding its stride.
“Our biggest stump the first half was we’d win the first game and get complacent,” Brodzinski said. “Our thing [Saturday] was to play like we lost the first game. … It was a big emphasis.”
Having lived with Donald Trump’s infamous and baseless insult against them — “they’re eating the dogs … they’re eating the cats” — Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are bracing for a far bigger injury.
More than 10,000 Haitians across Ohio and hundreds of thousands more around the country who had Temporary Protected Status now face the imminent prospect of deportation. The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration can halt those legal protections for Haitians and Syrians and resume forcing them to leave.
Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion for the court’s Republican-appointed majority curbed the power of courts to review government decisions to terminate protections under the TPS program.
“They side with him on everything that he says or everything that he does, which means there is no check and balance,” said Viles Dorsainvil, a Haitian TPS holder and executive director of the Haitian Support Center in Springfield, a town Trump catapulted into a maelstrom of misinformation about immigrants when he was running to retake the White House in 2024.
“The president has that freeway in front of him to do whatever he wants to do, unfortunately, and most of the time to a minority group of people,” added Dorsainvil, who has lived in the United States since 2020.
In a country rife with political and economic instability, Haitians returning from the U.S. are in danger of being killed or kidnapped, said Dorsainvil’s colleague at the Haitian Support Center, Rose Thamar Joseph.
“There is this perception in Haiti that if you are living here in the United States, you have money, so you are living your good life, so sending people back to Haiti will put them in real danger,” Joseph said.
Staying in the U.S. without legal status creates a different crisis.
“We received calls this morning from people saying that, unfortunately, starting on July 1, they won’t be able to go to work anymore,” Joseph said Friday.
Joseph predicted that families would be separated during the deportation process.
“We know that there will be separation,” she said. “A lot of those parents with TPS … they have kids who were born in the United States, so we know that it will happen, not for everybody, not for all the families, but it will happen,” she said.
The oncoming nightmare for the Haitian community in Springfield was, in many ways, predictable after Trump notoriously targeted them on the debate stage against then-Vice President Kamala Harris in the fall of 2024.
The Oregon Ducks and coach Dan Lanning have lost out on a top offensive lineman target for their 2027 recruiting class.
On Friday, four-star interior offensive lineman Caden Moss committed to the Ohio State Buckeyes, per On3’s Hayes Fawcett. The 6-5, 320-pound offensive lineman from Jackson Academy in Mississippi chose the Buckeyes over Oregon, Ole Miss, LSU, and Kentucky.
In his commitment post on Instagram, Moss said, “Go Bucks, I’m home.” Moss arrives at Ohio State rated as the No. 72 overall player nationally and No. 7 offensive tackle in the 2027 recruiting class, per 247Sports Composite rankings.
How Moss Commitment Impacts Oregon’s 2027 Recruiting Class Ranking
Despite the loss of Moss to their 2027 recruiting class, the Ducks are ahead of the Buckeyes in the rankings, per 247Sports. The Ducks are No. 6 in the 2027 recruiting class rankings, while the Buckeyes are two spots behind Oregon at No. 8 overall in the country.
The Ducks and Buckeyes, the way things stand at the end of June, have the two best 2027 recruiting classes in the Big Ten and are the only schools from the conference currently ranked inside the top 10. Oregon, however, has four more commits than Ohio State following Moss’ commitment to the Buckeyes on Friday.
The four Big Ten teams behind the Ducks and Buckeyes, but inside the top 20 of the 2027 recruiting class rankings, per 247Sports, include the Penn State Nittany Lions (No. 13), USC Trojans (No. 14), UCLA Bruins (No. 16), and Nebraska Cornhuskers (No. 18).
Oregon and Ohio State’s 2027 recruiting classes are very similar as they both have 11 total blue-chip commits, per 247Sports, including two five-stars and nine four-stars.
Oregon 2027 Offensive Line Commits
While wide receiver Dakota Guerrant and edge rusher Rashad Streets are Oregon’s two five-star commits in the 2027 recruiting class, the Ducks have four offensive line commits despite the loss of Moss to coach Ryan Day and the Buckeyes.
Offensive lineman commits in the Ducks’ 2027 recruiting class include a pair of four-star recruits, Gus Corsair and Cameron Wagner. Three-star commits Avery Michael and Lex Mailangi also highlight the offensive line commits in the Ducks’ 2027 recruiting class.
Over the course of his four seasons as coach of the Ducks, Oregon has been known for its efficient offensive line play, building one of the best groups in the country. In the last four seasons, the Ducks have been the only school to have their offensive line named a semifinalist for the Joe Moore Award.
With the commits in Oregon’s 2027 recruiting class, along with the returners that the Ducks have for the 2026 season, the offensive line looks to continue that trend heading into a year with national championship expectations.
As for the Buckeyes, Ohio State hopes that a dominant offensive lineman can help it continue to be a Big Ten championship and national title contender consistently, as it looks to avenge last season’s loss to the Miami Hurricanes in the CFP Quarterfinal at the Cotton Bowl.
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