Men's Lacrosse: Tigers fall to No. 4 Cornell

It was the Tigers’ first top ranking since the end of the 2001 season, and it ended much more quickly than it came.

The Tigers (10-2 overall, 3-1 Ivy League) fell 10-7 to No. 4 Cornell (9-2, 5-0) on Saturday in a game that the Big Red dominated on faceoffs, ground balls and time of possession.

Late in the third quarter, the Tigers appeared ready to close the gap. After trailing 5-4 at halftime, Princeton surrendered two quick second-half goals. But the Tigers fired back, closing the deficit back to one with eight minutes, 43 seconds left in the period when senior midfielder and co-captain Greg Seaman scored on an assist from junior attack Scott MacKenzie a few seconds after an extra-man opportunity had expired.

Cornell responded with midfielder George Calvert’s only goal of the day. But the Tigers weren’t finished yet. Princeton won the ensuing faceoff and held the ball for more than three minutes.

The Tigers, however, managed only two shots during this time, both of which came from the stick of sophomore attack Jack McBride. The first shot was wide, and the second was saved by goalie Jake Myers.

Cornell turned the ball over on its next possession, and the Tigers had two chances at the buzzer, but Myers made two excellent saves on shots from senior midfielder Rich Sgalardi and senior attack Tommy Davis.

The fourth quarter was perhaps one of the strangest quarters of lacrosse the Tigers have ever played under head coach Bill Tierney.

Cornell’s first possession of the period lasted 7:46, and the Big Red took 10 shots. Five were wide or high or were blocked by Tigers, and four were saved by freshman goalie Tyler Fiorito. The last one, from the stick of first-team All-American midfielder Max Seibald, found the back of the net.

“We played great defense,” Tierney said. “Maybe it would have been better to give up a goal in the first couple of minutes of [the quarter] and have a chance after that. Tyler made a couple of great saves, but [Cornell was] very poised. They took some shots that missed the goal, but they got back. They hit a couple of pipes, but they got the ground balls back. It was just a very frustrating time for us.”

Cornell won the ensuing faceoff after Seibald’s goal. The Tigers quickly forced a turnover and cleared the ball with 7:07 left in the quarter.

Four seconds later, Calvert stripped sophomore long-stick midfielder Long Ellis, and the Big Red had the ball again. Cornell scored another goal and won the ensuing faceoff before finally turning the ball over with 1:26 remaining. Princeton quickly cleared, and McBride wasted only a few seconds before registering his team-leading 28th goal of the season on an assist from Sgalardi.

But the goal was too little, too late. The Tigers did not have a single settled possession for the first 13:34 of the fourth period, a statistic that would haunt any coach.

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The Big Red rode All-American midfielder and faceoff-man John Glynn to a 19-14 advantage on faceoffs. Cornell held Princeton to a season-low 24 shots, including just two in the fourth quarter. Princeton picked up only 11 ground balls to Cornell’s 30.

“When you don’t win faceoffs in this game, it can become very frustrating, because you can’t get the ball and you can’t score,” Tierney said. “For the amount of time we had the ball yesterday — other than a couple of bad plays on offense and bad decisions on offense — we had seven goals, and we probably had the ball 15 minutes of the whole game.

The Tigers got off to a slow start. After each team’s goalie made a save on the opposing team’s first shot, Cornell ran off three goals in quick succession.

Six minutes later, Princeton got on the board when senior short-stick midfielder Josh Lesko notched his fifth goal of the season in transition.

But the Big Red had a quick answer, as Seibald scored his first goal of the game just 34 seconds later. Princeton appeared to regain some momentum when senior midfielder Mark Kovler notched his 23rd goal of the season with just two seconds left in the period to close the deficit back to two.

Cornell got a quick goal to start the second period when attack Ryan Hurley took a feed from midfielder Rocco Romero and fired home his second of the day 58 seconds into the period.

The Tigers shut the Big Red out for the rest of the quarter but only managed two goals of their own. Kovler notched his 24th, breaking his previous career high for a season, and sophomore attack Chris McBride also scored.

Princeton surrendered an unfortunate penalty with no time remaining in the first half when MacKenzie was called for pushing. The foul gave the Big Red a man-up chance to start the third period, and they capitalized when midfielder Jonathan Thomson scored on a feed from attack Rob Pannell.

Cornell got another quick goal from short-stick defensive midfielder Roy Lang at the 12:16 mark, but the Tigers fired right back when Kovler scored his third of the game under a minute later. The Tigers scored once more when Seaman notched his first of the game, but they never came any closer.

Though the regular season is nearly over — the Tigers have just two games left before the postseason — Tierney said he sees many areas in which Princeton needs to improve.

“Clearly the faceoff game has to improve,” Tierney said. “We have to be more aggressive on ground balls. We haven’t been taking the volume of shots we were taking earlier in the year, but I think that goes back to not winning faceoffs. You have to have the ball in this game to get shots. We may be getting a little stagnant on offense. It’s a lot of things that hopefully in a week’s time we can cure.”

It’s difficult to take anything good away from a tough loss to Cornell, which ensured the Big Red a share of its seventh straight Ivy League title. But there is one statistic that Princeton just might take solace in: The Tigers were 24-3 as the No. 1 team in the nation coming into the game.

Those three losses came during the 1994, 1996 and 1998 regular seasons. Each year, Princeton won every remaining regular-season game it had before winning the national title.