While it finished the regular season as the only undefeated team in Division I, the men’s lacrosse team was seeded fourth in the upcoming NCAA tournament. In the seedings, announced tonight, Cornell will face Towson in the first round of the tournament on Saturday afternoon at 2:30 p.m. at Schoellkopf Field.
Coming into the bracket announcement, Cornell (13-0, 6-0 Ivy) was the No. 1 team in the polls and the No. 2 team in the RPI rankings. Duke, which had slipped past Cornell in the RPI in recent days, received the No. 1 seed in the tournament, while Virginia will receive the No. 2 seed and Johns Hopkins the No. 3 seed. The Red also boast a win over the Blue Devils earlier this season.
Towson, Cornell’s first-round opponent, finished second in the Colonial Athletic Association after losing to Delaware, 10-7, in the final. The Tigers finished 9-6 in the regular season, with a 5-1 conference mark. Cornell’s only meeting with Towson in history was in the first round of the 2005 NCAA tournament, a 12-11 Red win.
If Cornell gets past Towson, it sets up a possible second-round matchup with Albany (14-2, 4-1 America East), who at one point joined the Red as undefeated teams before it lost, 17-13 to Syracuse on April 20.
The only other Ivy League squad besides Cornell to make the field was Princeton. Besides the Tigers and the Blue Devils, Notre Dame was the only other Red opponent this year to make the field