By April 3, 2006
The women’s lacrosse team traveled to New Jersey on Saturday afternoon to battle Princeton with first place in the conference on the line. Despite jumping out to an early 4-1 lead, the No. 12 Red could not hold on, as it fell to the No. 8 Tigers, 10-6. The loss is the 19th straight for Cornell (6-2, 2-1 Ivy) against Princeton (4-4, 2-0), a perennial Ivy League powerhouse.
The Red came out of the gate firing, jumping out to an early, 2-0, lead on goals by sophomores Katherine Simmons and Noelle Dowd.
Kathleen Miller would cut the Tiger’s deficit in half, however, with the first of her three goals on the night coming off a free position shot. But over the course of the next 10 minutes, the Red would add to its lead. Sophomore Courtney Farrell scored her 19th goal of the season, and then five minutes later, junior tri-captain Margaux Viola notched her 22nd tally, converting on a feed from Simmons.
“We played very well in the first 20 minutes of the game and looked really sharp,” said head coach Jenny Graap ’86. “Then Princeton started to slowly and steadily creep back into the game. It was very frustrating for us when we continued to shoot the ball, but weren’t able to score.”
Princeton would score three goals in the final five minutes of the half to tie the score at four heading into the intermission.
Picking up where it left off before halftime, Princeton scored the game’s next three goals to pull ahead, 7-4. Sophomore Charlotte Schmidlapp scored her second goal of the season with about 10 minutes remaining in the game, ending a 32-minute scoring drought for the Red. Cornell would not get any closer, as Princeton scored three consecutive goals to seal the game.
With 26 seconds left in the game, Simmons recorded her second goal of the game and her 17th of the season to close out the scoring. Simmons was the only Cornell player to record a multi-point game, while Katie Lewis-Lamonica paced Princeton with four points on two goals and two assists.
Cornell controlled play for much of the game, particularly in the first half. The Red out-shot the Tigers, 33-19, and held the turnover advantage, giving up the ball just 19 times compared to 28 Princeton turnovers. However, the primary difference was efficiency, as just 13 of Cornell’s 33 shots were on goal, compared to 17-of-19 by Princeton.
Cornell senior goalie Maggie Fava had seven saves on the day, including five in the first half, while sophomore Amanda Linnertz recorded seven ground balls.
“We didn’t really play as a unit in the second half. We got desperate and out of sorts,” Graap said. “This week we really need to focus on the team and mental side of the game, come together on offense, and not let this happen again.”
By April 3, 2006
As the men’s lacrosse team took the field on Saturday, a dark and ominous shadow descended upon the field of play. But the shadow wasn’t from the clouds of the impending storm that would drench the game in the second period.
It was the cloud of poor preparation.
No. 2 Cornell stumbled for the first time this season, losing to No. 16/No. 18 Penn, 8-6, in Philadelphia. Penn (7-1, 2-1 Ivy) was the last Ivy League team to beat Cornell (6-1, 1-1) – 11 conference games and two years ago – when the Quakers beat the Red, 10-8, on April 3, 2004. The Red’s loss also drops the team off pace of its 1987 counterpart, which won 13 in a row before losing to Johns Hopkins in the NCAA national championship game.
“There were a lot of lapses that we hadn’t made in the past,” said junior Mitch Belisle. “We just made errors that aren’t characteristic of our team.”
Despite holding an advantage in the game’s final tallies in shots (35-30), ground balls (26-16), clears (19-of-19) and faceoffs (8-of-15), Cornell committed 16 turnovers and had seven penalties to Penn’s three flags. Although only one of the ensuing man-up opportunities led to a Penn score, the Red was 0-of-3 on the extra-man advantage.
“I think we didn’t practice well. We just didn’t come to play that whole week of practice, and as [head] coach [Jeff Tambroni] says, ‘if you don’t practice well, you don’t play well,'” said senior captain Joe Boulukos.
Ahead 5-3 with 11:57 left in the third period, Cornell allowed Penn to score five unanswered goals and did not score for 20 minutes, giving Penn an advantage that was too great for the squad to overcome.
“We only scored one goal in the second half, which was tough, and when you put that much pressure on your defense, it’s not [good],” Boulukos said.
“I think we’ve been getting away with a lot because we’ve been a lot more talented than the teams we’ve played,” Belisle said. “We didn’t practice with the drive we needed to.