Men’s Lacrosse Rebounds With Rout of Dartmouth

The men’s lacrosse headline on Dartmouth’s athletics website Sunday read “Cornell Too Much for Big Green.” Too much, indeed. Talk about a rebound. The men’s lacrosse team took another step forward on the road to another Ivy League championship with a morale boosting 19-6 win over Dartmouth Saturday in New Hampshire. The No. 3 Red (8-2, 4-0 Ivy) dominated in almost every category, forcing the Green (3-8, 0-3 Ivy) to play catch up the entire match. The win will do a lot to erase any lingering bitterness following the Red’s loss last weekend to No. 6 Syracuse.
“It was a must-win game,” said freshman attacker Rob Pannell. “After the Syracuse game we were a little disappointed. I think the Dartmouth game was a chance to just get a win, keep on track for the Ivy title.”
Cornell was led by senior midfielder John Glynn, who scored a career-high five goals for the Red. Pannell also registered a strong performance, scoring two goal and four assists. With the six points, Pannell broke the Red freshman record for points in a single season, with 44 points so far this season.
Adding to the offensive accomplishments of Glynn and Pannell, junior attackman Ryan Hurley, senior attack Chris Finn and classmates midfielder Rocco Romero and middie Max Seibald all registered multiple-point games. Hurley scored three goals with an assist and Finn scored two goals with an assist.
The high number of assists was a key point in the win, Glynn said.
“We went back to the basics against Dartmouth,” he said. “We moved well off-ball, we got a lot of great opportunities … That’s what we want, to get as many people to touch the ball as possible.”
Against Syracuse the Red seemed to struggle holding onto the ball [img_assist|nid=36775|title=Make it happen|desc=Senior midfielder John Glynn scored five goals and won 10-of-12 face-offs to help the Red bounce back from a midweek loss to Syracuse with a 19-6 thrashing of Dartmouth.|link=node|align=left|width=|height=0] any significant amount of time, something that was not a problem in New Hampshire.
“At Dartmouth we were able to [control possession],” Pannell said. “We had a ton of possession time and a ton of goals.”
The Red also benefited from a balanced effort in goal, with all three netminders seeing action in the contest. Senior Jake Myers earned the win with a three-save, three goals-against performance, while senior Kyle Harer saved three and allowed two goals in just over 20 minutes of action, and sophomore Mat Martinez made two saves with one goal allowed in he final 8:29 minutes of action.
“It was a big game for our goalies,” Pannell said. “It was a great confidence builder [especially for the starter Martinez].”
In terms of the statistics battle, Cornell held the clear edge, leading in shots, 40-23, ground balls, 44-25, while also winning 20-of-28 face-offs. Also of note, the Red used three different players at the X, with each performing well. Glynn was 10-for-12, junior middle Matt Sutherland was 6-of-8 and sophomore middle Kevin Raesly won 4-of-8 for Cornell. Adding to his already impressive performance, Glynn also led the team in ground balls, with seven.
On the other side, the home team was lead by junior attacker Ari Sussman, who scored one goal for the Green with two assists. The Green’s netminder, a harried Fergus Campbell, a freshman, made seven saves to earn the loss.
Unsurprisingly, Cornell was the first to draw blood as the match commenced, after Pannell caused a Dartmouth turnover that resulted in a Red goal just three minutes into the game. The Red then went on a demoralizing, 10-1 scoring run to send a dramatic message in the first 20 minutes of play, a much different start than against the Orange.
“I think we played a lot better this game [versus against Syracuse],” Glynn said. “We came out early and really tried to be as aggressive as we could, and also as smart as we could.”
Glynn scored four of his goals during this hot streak, including the game’s first, with Pannell assisting twice as well.
“Once we grabbed the lead you could feel Dartmouth losing its hope a little bit,” Glynn said.
Dartmouth was shut out for almost the entire first quarter, but Sussman’s score was negated by a back-to-back scoring sequence from Glynn and Seibald, making the score 6-1 at the end of the quarter.
Dartmouth picked up some speed with ten minutes left to play in the second, trading goals with the Red. But Cornell still left the field for the locker rooms with a commanding, 13-3 lead.
The Red slowed its pace somewhat in the third period, allowing the Green to pull off back-to-back goals to start the period. Unperturbed, Cornell answered back decisively with a six-goal scoring run.
With just over five minutes left in the game, Dartmouth scored its final goal of the match, brining the score to 19-6, which it would remain until the final whistle.
Cornell needs to maintain the momentum earned Saturday into next weekend’s home match, against a very strong Princeton team, ranked second in the nation as of yesterday night.