In freezing rain and snowy conditions, the No. 7 Cornell men’s lacrosse team defeated No. 10 Albany at SMU’s Ford Field in Dallas at the seventh annual Patriots Cup. After trailing 3-1 midway through the first quarter, the Big Red went on a 10-2 run to take control of the game en-route to the decisive victory.
Connor Buczek led the Big Red with five goals and one assist, while Matt Donovan finished with five points for the third straight game with three goals and two assist. John Hogan added two goals and one assist and Dan Lintner registered his first goals of the season, finishing with two tallies on the day. Bradlee Lord also had a mulit-point game with one goal and one assist, while Chris Cook, Kason Tarbell, and John Edmonds all scored once. For Tarbell, the goal was the first of his collegiate career.
Domenic Massimilian was solid once again in the face-off circle, winning 17-of-29 restarts and picking up 11 ground balls. He was helped on the wings by Cook, who matched a career-high with seven ground balls.After playing a pair of games indoors, Christian Knight showed how good he can be in the light of day, making 14 saves, including nine in the final quarter as the Big Red held off Albany’s comeback bid.
Albany (1-1) was led by reigning Tewaaraton Trophy winner Lyle Thompson’s two goals and two assists. Cornell defender Jordan Stevens did an outstanding job on Thompson, who also finished the day with nine turnovers. John Maloney scored twice and Jake Cullen had a goal and two assists.
In cage, Blaze Riorden made 12 saves in the loss.
Cornell (3-1) held the advantage in shots (43-33), shots on goal (28-23) and ground balls (40-38). The Big Red went 4-for-5 on man-up chanced and held the Great Danes to 1-of-3 on its chances. Cornell also cleared the ball on 17-of-19 chances, while Albany was successful on just 17-of-21.
Despite the great finish by Cornell, it was the Great Danes that got out to the fast start.
Donovan got the Big Red on the board just 33 seconds into the contest, but Albany answered with consecutive goals by Tim Cox, Cullen and Maloney to go up, 3-1, at the 8:47 mark of the first quarter. Cornell won the ensuing face-off and Buczek ended the Albany run with the first of five straight Cornell tallies, including three from the midfielder, before Thompson cut the Big Red’s lead to 6-4.
The momentum was short-lived, however, as Cornell rattled off five more goals to go up 11-5 early in the third quarter. The second run saw five different goal scorers with Hogan, Donovan, Tarbell, Cook and Buczek finding the back of the net.
Once again a goal by Thompson ended the run, but the teams traded goals the rest of the quarter, with Big Red tallies from Hogan, Donovan and Lord, as Cornell took the 14-8 lead into the final break.
Derek Eccles scored first in the fourth quarter to pull the Great Danes within five goals, 14-9, but that was as good as it would get, as Lintner scored off a fantastic pass from Donovan during a timer-on and Buczek tallied a man-up goal to push the Big Red’s lead back to seven goals, 16-9.
Knight closed the game with five straight saves, including two during an Albany man-up chance, to preserve the victory.
