On Saturday, the two best teams in the Ivy League will square off one last time. The fourth-seeded Tigers will face fifth-seeded Cornell on a neutral Shuart Field at Hofstra University, and the winner of the game will earn a spot in the Final Four.
Princeton hasn’t played an Ivy League team in the tournament since 1994. That season, the Tigers knocked off Brown in the semifinals after having lost to the Bears in the regular season.
Both teams come off three-goal home wins in their first games in the tournament. Last Sunday, Princeton held off UMass 10-7 behind five goals from senior midfielder Mark Kovler and 12 saves from freshman goalie Tyler Fiorito. The Tigers raced to a 6-1 halftime lead and then kept a comfortable lead of at least three goals throughout the second half.
On Saturday, Cornell topped Hofstra 12-8 after the teams were tied at the half. Spurred by defenseman Michael Howe, who replaced senior midfielder John Glynn on faceoffs, the Big Red exploded for five goals while ceding only one in the third quarter. A game tied at five was suddenly a 10-6 game, and in the fourth quarter Cornell only needed to hold the Pride off.
The Big Red was led by attack Rob Pannell, the Ivy League Player of the Year. Pannell, who was relatively unknown in recruiting circles coming out of a postgraduate year at Deerfield Academy, notched three goals and two assists. With an average of 4.00 points per game, he is tied for fourth in the nation with attack Ned Crotty from Duke. His 35 assists are third in the country.
Pannell’s matchup with Princeton freshman defenseman Chad Wiedmaier will be one of the defining clashes of the game. The first time the two freshman sensations met — in a 10-7 Cornell victory at Schoellkopf Field — they played to a stalemate: Pannell finished with only one goal on eight shots and two assists, both of which came on man-up chances.
He finished with three turnovers, two of which were forced by Wiedmaier, who became the third Princeton freshman and first freshman defenseman to be named a first-team All-Ivy League selection earlier this week.
Cornell’s attack also features Ryan Hurley, the team’s leading goal scorer. With a goal against Hofstra last week, Hurley became the fifth player in Cornell history to notch back-to-back 40-goal seasons. Containing Hurley was a bit of challenge for Princeton in the teams’ first meeting, as the six-foot, three-inch Minnesotan tallied three goals on five shots.
“Getting to the Final Four is something that everyone hopes to be in a position to do, so we’re very excited about that,” senior short-stick defensive midfielder and tri-captain Brendan Reilly said. “In terms of playing an Ivy League opponent, it’s an honor, and we’re proud to represent the league well. We have a lot of respect for Cornell as a team. They beat us earlier in the season, and we know how talented they are and how good a team they are ... Like you said, the Final Four is kind of what you’re aiming for, and any time you get a chance to play for that, it’s an exciting game.”
On the opposite side of the field, Princeton will look to get more going against a Cornell defense that surrenders 8.79 goals per game on average. All-American defenseman Matt Moyer was thought by some to be done for the season coming into last week’s game against Hofstra. Not only did Moyer end up starting, he scored the game’s first goal.
Moyer is joined on the Big Red defense by Max Feely and Andrew MacDonald. In the teams’ first contest, Cornell’s defense held the Princeton attack to two goals and one assist.
The Big Red received a boost earlier this season when goalie Kyle Harer was replaced by Jake Myers. While Myers’ stats — a 9.01 goals-against average and a .485 save percentage — aren’t particularly impressive, the senior has righted the ship in turbulent times.
“Cornell’s goalie is no slouch,” head coach Bill Tierney said. “He had a hell of a game against us last time.”
Myers finished with seven saves against Princeton in the teams’ first game, but no two were more important than the two he made as time expired at the end of the third quarter, when the score was 8-6. By the time Princeton got the ball back again, there were less than 90 seconds remaining in the game.
“Cornell very, very rarely gives up double figures,” Tierney said. “This is a team that plays great defense, and this year, they’re much more inclined to control the ball than they [were] in the past, so it’s just tougher to score.”
The battle in the midfield will perhaps be the most dynamic of the game. Princeton’s midfield did nearly all the work last week against UMass, scoring nine of the Tigers’ 10 goals. Kovler, senior Rich Sgalardi and junior Scott MacKenzie have all at least doubled their previous career highs in both goals and assists in a season.
Cornell’s midfield is spearheaded by two first-team All-Americans: the freakishly athletic Max Seibald and faceoff man John Glynn. Seibald brings an otherworldly combination of size and speed to the lacrosse field: At 6’1” and 205 pounds, he once ran an electronically timed 4.39-second 40-yard dash, the fastest in the history of Cornell athletics.
His 25 goals are second only to Hurley on the team, and his 40 ground balls indicate that he can impose his body during scrums. He is also a huge threat during transitions.
Glynn’s 26 points are fourth best on the team, and his .589 faceoff win percentage is fourth best in the nation. He has managed to maintain a high level of play despite playing much of the year with a fractured left elbow.
In the teams’ last meeting, the Tigers’ defensive midfield was in a bit of a tight spot. Reilly was playing through a rolled ankle, and freshman long-stick midfielder John Cunningham was playing his first game in more than a month after breaking his jaw in practice during spring break. Sophomore midfielder Long Ellis was splitting time at long-stick and short-stick for only the second game.
Reilly has since made a strong recovery, and Cunningham has shaken off any rust. Ellis has been regularly used at both short-stick and long-stick since the last game, and the transition has surely become a regular part of his routine.
But the single most important aspect of the teams’ last meeting was time of possession. Glynn put on what appeared to be a master class, winning 13 of 18 faceoffs and picking up 11 ground balls. Princeton midfielder Paul Barnes won one of seven before being replaced by freshman defenseman Jonathan Meyers, who won four of 11.
Glynn’s performance raised eyebrows around the nation, and it sparked talk on online lacrosse message boards that he might have used some suspicious methods to win faceoffs. ESPNU commentator and Inside Lacrosse columnist Quint Kessenich confirmed these reports in a video posted on Inside Lacrosse’s website this week, suggesting that Glynn “is a guy who likes to grab the ball with his glove.”
The matchup on faceoffs will be key on Saturday. While the Tigers undoubtedly made some mistakes on both the offensive and defensive ends against Cornell in the teams’ first meeting, the score was still very close. For the amount of the time they possessed the ball, the Tigers’ seven goals were quite impressive. The same was true on the other end of the field: Given the amount of time the Big Red held the ball, the Princeton defense did well in limiting Cornell to 10 goals.
“In the fourth quarter, we had the ball for 45 seconds,” Tierney said. “In the game, we had the ball less than 20 minutes, and we lost [14] out of [19] faceoffs. We were just beat by a better team last time.”
Additionally, Princeton finished with only 11 ground balls. The Tigers had never picked up so few ground balls in any game during Tierney’s tenure at Princeton. Cornell finished with 30 ground balls, and this success was another huge contributor to the Big Red’s massive advantage in possession time.
“Cornell is a team we know really well obviously playing them every year,” Kovler said. “I didn’t get to play in the game last year so I’ve never beat Cornell. This is a special opportunity to be able to do that, to play a team you know really well. You know all their players playing against them for four years. It’s great to get to go out there, especially since they’re one of the two teams that beat us this year — get some redemption and have the Final Four on the line.”
“They had a better effort than we did,” Tierney said. “We need a better effort this time.”
Tierney’s to-do list for Saturday’s game is simple: “We need to win more faceoffs, we need to have more ball possession, and we need to shoot better.”
If his team can do that, Princeton just might be on its way back to the Final Four for the first time since 2004.
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