PHILADELPHIA - The Penn men's lacrosse team defeated ranked Cornell teams in both 2004 and 2006 at Franklin Field. Entering Saturday's game, both the Quakers and the Big Red were ranked -- Penn at No. 19, Cornell at No. 6. There was no threepeat for Penn, however.

Instead, Cornell came out with incredible defensive intensity, holding the Quakers without a goal until just 4:20 was left in the third quarter. By that time, the Big Red had piled up an 8-0 lead, and the rest was history as Cornell cruised to a 13-5 victory.

Cornell (7-1, 2-0 Ivy) jumped into the lead just nine seconds into the game, when John Glynn won the opening faceoff and streaked down toward the goal. When the Penn defense committed, he fed Ryan Hurley for an easy goal. The rout was on.

Hurley scored again with 9:19 left in the quarter, and then just 18 seconds later he fed Chris Finn for a 3-0 Cornell lead. Christopher Ritchie and Hurley scored before the quarter was over, making it 5-0 after just 15 minutes.

In the second, Cornell's Rocco Romero and Glynn scored goals, and the teams went to the locker rooms at halftime with the Big Red leading, 7-0. Hurley then notched his fourth of the day midway through the third, making it 8-0.

Penn (4-3, 2-1 Ivy) -- which to that point had certainly taken a number of shots but had not really tested Cornell goalie Jake Myers -- finally got on the board with 4:20 left in the third when Alex Weber fired home an underhanded shot from a low angle. Less than three minutes after that, Penn emerged from a midfield scramble with the ball, and Corey Winkoff fed a long pass to a wide-open Craig Andrzejewski. The junior potted the goal, and it was 8-2 with 1:48 left in the third.

Penn's two goals only seemed to wake up a slumbering beast: Cornell scored three times before the quarter ended. The first came when Finn finished a Hurley feed with 1:23 left, and then just eight seconds later Max Seibald scored right off the faceoff. The dagger came with just two seconds left, when John Espey notched an unassisted goal.

Cornell scored two more times in the first four minutes of the fourth quarter, building up a 13-2 bulge, before Penn got goals from Winkoff, Weber and Al Kohart in the game's final six minutes.

Chris Casey played the first three quarters in goal and had six saves; Greg Murray mopped up in the fourth and had two stops while allowing two goals. At the other end, Myers finished the day with 12 saves and allowed just two goals in 53 minutes, while Mat Martinez played the final 6:40.

Penn is back in action next Saturday, traveling to Dartmouth to take on the Big Green at 1:00 p.m.

* * * *

PHILADELPHIA – The No. 6/8 Cornell men's lacrosse team used a stifling defense to hold No. 19/20 Penn scoreless for the first 40:40 of the game and jumped out to an early 8-0 lead en rout to a 13-5 victory over the Quakers this afternoon at Franklin Field. The win, the Big Red's first at Franklin Field since the 2002 season, improves Cornell to 7-1 overall and 2-0 in the Ivy League, while Penn falls to 4-3 overall and 2-1 in the conference.

Cornell goalie Jake Myers proved to be the difference in this game, finishing with a career-high 12 saves and allowing just two goals in the first 53:20 of action before giving way to Mat Martinez, who allowed three goals in he final 6:40 and did not register a save. For Penn, Chris Casey played the first 45:00 of the contest and made six saves and allowed 11 goals, before Greg Murray came on in relief and gave up two goals and made two saves.

1 2 3    Next  »

2008-03-29