WATCH: Michigan State’s David Gucciardi Speaks After Loss to Cornell

TOLEDO, Ohio-- Michigan State entered the first round of the NCAA Tournament as the second overall seed. At this point in the season, there are no easy games, but the Spartans drew a particularly tough team in Cornell.

Michigan State was able to acquire a two-goal lead for a moment before Cornell came storming back. The Spartans went down 4-3 with just 10 seconds left in the game to advance themselves to the regional final on Saturday, ending the Spartans' season.

Michigan State senior defenseman David Gucciardi laid it all on the line for his team in the loss.

You can watch some of his media availability below:

Below is a transcript of head coach Adam Nightingale's opening statement following the loss.

“Obviously tough finish to a great season, only one team gets to finish with a win- not us this year. I told the guys, I could not be more proud of our group, they’ve done everything we’ve asked them to do. This is a little of the reality of a single elimination game, and I thought we did a lot of good stuff. I thought we weren’t surprised at all, we knew what we were getting into.

"Congrats to Cornell, I thought they played a good game. That’s about as solid as we’ve played for about 53 minutes, I thought we controlled a lot of the play. We had some opportunities to extend the led. They really made some good saves, and all of a sudden, you’re in a game there. We really needed a big penalty kill at the end and couldn’t get it done."

"These guys have put a ton into it, a ton of sacrifice. You look at this year and it was a little bit different for the group than last year. I think last year we snuck up on some teams, and this year that wasn’t the case. I think we were picked to finish first in our league, and we did that, we ended up winning our conference tournament and we had a target on our back the whole year.

"The consistency of this group, I give credit to the leadership we see it every day in practice, I see our guy’s commitment to the weightroom, commitment in the classroom, commitment to doing it the right way. And that’s our sport, and especially in this single elimination you can play well and maybe not get rewarded.

"That’s not to take away from Cornell, I thought they did what they needed to do to win a hockey game, and obviously Coach Schafer had a great career here and the run their teams been on, so a lot of respect for them, but we’ll be back."

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