FAIRFIELD, Conn. -- The stands at Yale University's gymnasium, which were supposed to be filled for a basketball game against Brown, held mourners instead Friday night after three Yale students were killed and six others injured in a chain-reaction crash on slick Interstate 95.

Several of the victims were members of Yale's football and baseball teams, including three who remained hospitalized Saturday in critical condition. They were all traveling in a sport utility vehicle, which collided with a tractor-trailer that had crashed moments earlier.

Richard Brodhead, Yale College dean, told about 400 students, faculty and staff who filled the stands and spilled onto the Payne Whitney Gymnasium floor that the accident was "the most sudden kind of death."

"We learn by the time we are 3 or 4 years old that humans are not supposed to live forever. Still, every single death comes to us as news," Brodhead said.

State police said the driver of the SUV, Yale junior Sean Fenton, 20, of Newport Beach, Calif., was killed. Also killed were sophomore Kyle Burnat, 19, of Atlanta, a baseball pitcher, and Andrew Dwyer, 19, of Hobe Sound, Fla.

Two other students -- Nicholas G. Grass and Eric W. Wenzel -- suffered critical injuries.

Grass, 19, of Holyoke, Mass., a sophomore and a pitcher on Yale's baseball team, was in critical condition at St. Vincent Hospital in Bridgeport.

Wenzel, 21, of Garden City, N.Y., a senior running back on the football team and a lacrosse goaltender, is in critical condition with broken ribs, a broken collarbone and facial injuries. He was the lacrosse team's Most Valuable Player.

After each student's name was read, Brodhead held a moment of silence. Teammates of the baseball players bowed their heads, many pressing their hands to their faces.

School officials read portions of scripture and a choir sang "Amazing Grace" to end the service.

Some members of the baseball and lacrosse teams lingered after the ceremony but were too upset to talk to reporters. Many student athletes wore blue and white ribbons.

"I think we're all trying our best to keep it together and support one another," said Kaitlyn Porcaro, a senior on the women's hockey team. "We're all athletes. This is just something that hits close to home."

All of Yale's home athletic events were canceled Friday. The basketball game with Brown was rescheduled for Saturday.

"I've been at Yale a long time and this is as black a day as I've seen," Brodhead said. "These were people like you, people in their prime, people who had everything in front of them."

Several students said the group was returning from a Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity event in New York City. The Yale Daily News, citing sources it did not identify, also said the students were returning from a fraternity event. The university would not confirm the report.

State police spokesman Sgt. J. Paul Vance said it would be several weeks before the investigation was completed, including toxicology results and a reconstruction of the accident.

"There's a lot of work that needs to be done," he said.

Mike McDaniel, a freshman on the football team, said the victims were all pledges or members of the fraternity.

"They weren't doing anything wrong," he said. "It wasn't their fault. ... The guys who were killed, they had a lot going for them."

Fraternity members would not comment Friday.

The accident happened at about 5 a.m. when a northbound tractor-trailer driven by Armando Salgado, 33, of Gardena, Calif., lost control and crossed into oncoming traffic on I-95, the state police said.

Salgado's truck partially crossed the concrete barrier that separates the two sides of the highway. The truck then hit another tractor-trailer and a car, both heading south.

Then, the SUV carrying the Yale students smashed into the rear of Salgado's truck, state police said.

Also injured, state police said, were:

Zachory A. Bradley, 19, a sophomore and infielder from Alexander, Ark. He was being treated at Bridgeport Hospital for a broken left arm and broken jaw.

Cameron A. Fine, 18, of Phoenix, a freshman and offensive lineman. He was in satisfactory condition St. Vincent's Hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Christopher W. Gary, 18, a linebacker from Nazareth, Pa. The freshman was admitted to Norwalk Hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Brett D. Smith, 19, of Papillion, Neb., a freshman quarterback who suffered serious injuries and was being treated at Norwalk Hospital.

Salgado and the driver of the other car, Lucilo Cifuertes, 46, of Wilton, also were also injured. They were in satisfactory condition at St. Vincent's Hospital.

The accident, near exit 24 at the Bridgeport/Fairfield town line, shut down I-95, the main highway along the Connecticut shoreline, for about three hours in both directions.

Bradley's father, Larry Bradley, said he had few details except that his son was going to recover. He said the students were all friends with his son.

"That's one close bunch of kids up there at a school like that," he said.

Darcy Hripak, who works at a Cumberland Farms convenience store next to the highway, said workers there heard a crash just after 5 a.m.

"We just heard a big bang," Hripak said.

In the hours before the fatal accident, state police said there had been a number of other accidents reported on I-95 in Norwalk, New Haven and Westport when there was snow on the highway.

There was also a car rollover reported northbound about 4 a.m. in the area where the fatal accident occurred an hour later.