Men's Lacrosse: Tigers fall to Big Red at MetLife Stadium

The No. 12 men’s lacrosse team suffered its biggest loss of the year, losing 17-11 to No. 4 Cornell in its final game of the regular season. The game drops the Tigers to 8-5 on the season and 3-3 in the Ivy League, giving them the fourth and final seed in the Ivy League tournament that will take place this weekend. The Tigers will now have to face the Big Red again in the first round of the tournament, this time in Ithaca, N.Y.

The Tigers started the game slowly, not scoring a single goal in the first quarter while allowing three Cornell goals. Rob Pannell scored the first two for the Big Red and would finish the game with five goals and four assists for a total of nine points, tying his season high.

Turnovers were a problem for the Tigers, as they allowed seven in the first frame, almost as many as they did for the rest of the game. Cornell goalie A.J. Fiore also came up huge for the Big Red, as he stopped all four shots he faced in that quarter. The Tigers had not been held scoreless for an entire quarter since the first period against Penn on March 16. The one bright spot from the period was that Princeton won all four face-offs, something the team would need to continue doing if it was to get back in the game.

The Tigers finally managed to get on the board early in the second period when sophomore attack Mike MacDonald snuck the ball past Fiore on the Tigers' 10th shot of the game. Cornell would respond quickly and mightily, however, going on to score the next five goals for an 8-1 lead halfway through the second quarter. Goals by junior midfielder Tom Schreiber and freshman midfielder Jake Froccaro got the Tigers within five, but the Big Red added on one final goal before the quarter ended to take a 9-3 lead into the half.

Cornell scored another goal early in the third period before the Tigers finally built some momentum by scoring three straight goals, including a pair by MacDonald on man-up opportunities, to get the Tigers within four and make the game close.

The game then became a very back-and-forth affair, as the Tigers and Big Red interchanged goals until the score was 14-10 with less than six minutes to play. Cornell proceeded to score three unanswered goals to put the game out of reach. Princeton added one more goal at the end of the game, making the final score 17-11.

The match was the first of two games that made up the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic at MetLife Stadium. The Tigers have played at least one match in an NFL stadium every year since 2007. The Tigers are 5-5 in those games, including a double-overtime loss and an overtime win, and are 7-8 all-time in NFL stadiums. The game was followed by another matchup between top-10 teams in which No. 7 Syracuse rolled over No. 1 Notre Dame.

The Tigers will travel to Ithaca on Friday for the semifinals of the Ivy League tournament. If Princeton fails to beat Cornell and win the tournament, the Tigers will have to hope to get an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. The game begins on Friday at 8 p.m.