Ohio State’s men’s lacrosse team hosts Michigan in the Big Ten Tournament on Saturday

A week after beating Michigan 9-8 to close out the regular season, Ohio State’s men’s lacrosse team will host the Wolverines for the second time in eight days, this time in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament.

The Buckeyes will be looking for their first win over Michigan in the Big Ten Tournament since 2022. Ohio State is 5-7 in the Big Ten Tournament all-time, but are the defending champions after taking home their first conference tournament crown last season.

The win over Michigan last Friday was Ohio State’s second in a row, as they took down Johns Hopkins 7-6 on April 11 in Columbus. Johns Hopkins was ranked 10th in the nation at the time of the loss to the Buckeyes.

Ohio State closed out their regular season schedule playing six of their last eight games against teams ranked in the top-15 in the country. The six goals Johns Hopkins scored were their lowest total of the season in a game.

In last week’s win over the Wolverines, Michigan jumped out to a 3-0 lead before Alex Marinier scored Ohio State’s lone goal of the first quarter with 5:37 left in the first frame.

The Buckeyes started to find their footing in the second quarter with goals from Cullen Brown, Jake Struck, and Liam White to tie the game 4-4 before a Adam Udell gave Michigan a 5-4 lead at halftime.

The second half of the rivalry battle essentially turned into a duel between Logan Soelberg and Adam Udell. Soelberg scored Ohio State’s first two goals of the half with a tally from Udell sandwiched in between the goals.

Jackson Birtwistle gave the Buckeyes their first lead of the game with a little more than two minutes left in the third quarter before Udell tied the game back up early in the fourth quarter.

Soelberg would record the first hat trick of his career when he netted his third goal of the game with 6:38 left. Udell would record his fifth goal of the game with 3:45 left on the fourth quarter clock. The game would remain tied until Garrett Haas scored with 3.4 seconds to go to give Ohio State the thrilling victory in front of a sold out home crowd.

The win was Ohio State 10th of the year, giving them back-to-back 10-win seasons for the first time since 1965-66. The Buckeyes now have 15 seasons of at least 10 wins in program history.