Cornell 11- Brown 8 - - Final

Just got in, no thread, so:

But no stats from me.

Whew! That should wake everyone up for the final game.

From the Cornell radio broadcast.

Shots CU 42, BU 36
Saves CU 9, BU 13
GB CU 39, BU 33
EMO CU 0-4, BU 0-2
Clears CU 21-22, BU 16-20

all unofficial

Faceoffs 13-9 CU

ebilmes
Faceoffs 13-9 CU

And it seemed that most of the face-offs we lost were on procedure calls.

Definitely not the invincible #1 team I expected to see. I'm prepared to blame some of it on the wet grass field, since we're a team that depends on turnovers, and they're harder to come by if the ball isn't rolling. But our shot selection was not the best, the Brown D collapsed on the goalie a lot, and to give credit, the Brown goalie played a great game. As did McMonagle, who kept it close until we could find our game.

As Ugarte said, let's hope that wakes them up a bit. No first round upsets like last year, please.

Jeff Hopkins '82
As Ugarte said, let's hope that wakes them up a bit. No first round upsets like last year, please.

In fact, given the possibility of a #1 overall seed, no upsets AT ALL, please.

Despite warnings of rain, an absolutely gorgeous day for lacrosse at Brown. Just over 2,000 in attendance. Felt as if Cornell was half the crowd. Decent field (grass) with small and aging (near-rotted floorbands) stands, a field like Cornell used to have a generation ago before Cornell felt an academic building was more useful next to Teagle than an earth-friendly grass field. One of Cornell's regrets may be, should be, how it's pushed athletics farther from center campus.

Not Cornell's best effort. But it's a win. Cornell's defense swarmed and McMonagle had some great saves, but Brown still found a way to score. Cornell on attack had several shots go astray that should have gone in. David Mitchell had several point blank shots and couldn't convert. (He had one goal, to make it 9-5 during the 5-2 third-quarter burst.) Despite being close -- 5-4, at the half -- it didn't seem as if we were in danger of losing, only of not winning big. Cornell stalled the last couple minutes, had a pass behind the Brown cage intercepted, run upfield, and converted for a goal; even after that, Cornell elected not to go for the fourth-goal margin.

Thirteen seconds after Brown cut the lead to three, Cornell won the faceoff and Max Seibald had a rocket for Cornell's 10th goal with 10 seconds left in the third, returning the lead to +4, that blasted right through the netting and left the playing field. The referees thought about it for a couple seconds and decided, yes, it was a goal. Before Max returns to Providence for his senior year in 2009, Brown perhaps should substitute Kevlar twine.

We won the faceoffs battle? (Stats: Cornell, 13-9.) Coulda fooled us in the stands. We were like one-for-eleven in the first quarter, or so it seemed, the one being a procedure call that went our way. It seemed to even up in the second half. So if that's the case, we seemed to figure out by halftime what adjustments to make. I still wonder if one of Cornell's wrestlers has seen a lacrosse stick and wouldn't mind sharing a couple hours each weekend doing pro bono work.

Cornell's ball control felt a bit uneven in the midfield. We had more than our share of balls knocked loose and lost. Also, once we started winning faceoffs, the faceoff man, Tommy Schmicker, a couple times elected to try to run the ball up, rather than pass off to a purer stickhandler, and lost possession. Maybe it was just once or twice, but because we had done so poorly on faceoffs early on (1x5 first period, 5x11 for the half), you noticed any glitch there.

Cornell only hit with three penalties. A lot of us felt the referees called more than a few possession, pushing, and out-of-bounds calls to the unfair benefit of the Bruins.

After the game, the players' parents were lamenting that this was not Cornell at its best, and looking on the bright side, that it's good we got the mediocre game out of the way now, not, say, in round 1 or 2 of the NCAAs.

Lots of talk during game breaks about whether we'd be seeded so as to wind up, if we advance, at Princeton or at Navy.

Schadenfreude: Good news about Syracuse being knocked out of the tournament. It's one team that could give us trouble because they match up so well. But if they fall of the top 20, there goes one of the sort-of quality wins for us. And we should be rooting for NYS teams. Until Albany's demise the last two games, it looked as if there was a good chance of two NYS teams being in the final four. That'd have Swami's Depends in need of a quick change.

Amazing: long stick Ethan Vedder with two goals. Seems as if every team, seeing an opposing LS defender charge upfield with the ball, takes that deer-in-the-headlights stance and stands around to see if the idiot really does plan to shoot what is known to be a low-percentage shot, when they should, of course, be knocking him flat on his butt. (That happened to us vs. UMass, didn't it?)

been busy and away from cornell lacrosse all season, awesome to see how well they are doing!

I was travelling and unable to hear the game, but stats again show that the middies did most of the scoring. Did Brown follow Princeton's lead and put a short stick on Mitchell?

billhoward
Amazing: long stick Ethan Vedder with two goals. Seems as if every team, seeing an opposing LS defender charge upfield with the ball, takes that deer-in-the-headlights stance and stands around to see if the idiot really does plan to shoot what is known to be a low-percentage shot, when they should, of course, be knocking him flat on his butt. (That happened to us vs. UMass, didn't it?)

I had that same reaction watching him from the stands. Oh my God, he's taking it right to the net! Of course, we need to set up the dump to an attackman in the event that the defense remembers to collapse on him. Frankly, we need to do more of that.

I thought there were plenty of opportunities where a well placed shot off the break would have broken Brown a bit, but we chose to pull back and go with a set offense. I just remember the Duke playoff game a couple years back when we played methodical for 3 quarters and fell behind, and then went on fast attack and climbed back in.

And I wish I had as much confidence as Bill did that it was never out of control. I was VERY concerned that we'd let down after the Princeton game.

Jeff Hopkins '82
I just remember the Duke playoff game a couple years back when we played methodical for 3 quarters and fell behind, and then went on fast attack and climbed back in.

No one is more pleased than I am that Tambroni has scrapped the Bill Tierney style of play for what he apparently now calls "intelligent tempo." I'm not sure that Duke didn't have too many horses for us to have won that quarterfinal game even with a tempo change, but I think those Sean Greenhalgh/Andrew Collins teams could have benefited from a more up-tempo style of play.

It will be interesting to see what style Tambroni chooses to play next year when Cornell fields an all-new attack trio. Glynn, Seibald, and either Espey or Romero will be a talented first midfield, but will the rebuilt attack be able to put shots away with the skill of Mitchell, Pittard and Bartlett. Running fast breaks and not finishing usually results in the ball coming back the other way very quickly.

Jeff Hopkins '82

billhoward
Amazing: long stick Ethan Vedder with two goals. Seems as if every team, seeing an opposing LS defender charge upfield with the ball, takes that deer-in-the-headlights stance and stands around to see if the idiot really does plan to shoot what is known to be a low-percentage shot, when they should, of course, be knocking him flat on his butt. (That happened to us vs. UMass, didn't it?)

I had that same reaction watching him from the stands. Oh my God, he's taking it right to the net! Of course, we need to set up the dump to an attackman in the event that the defense remembers to collapse on him. Frankly, we need to do more of that.

His second goal was very impressive as he did have defenders collapsing on him. He took two or three good slashes on the arm and stick and still maintained possession and scored.

oceanst41

Jeff Hopkins '82

billhoward
Amazing: long stick Ethan Vedder with two goals. Seems as if every team, seeing an opposing LS defender charge upfield with the ball, takes that deer-in-the-headlights stance and stands around to see if the idiot really does plan to shoot what is known to be a low-percentage shot, when they should, of course, be knocking him flat on his butt. (That happened to us vs. UMass, didn't it?)

I had that same reaction watching him from the stands. Oh my God, he's taking it right to the net! Of course, we need to set up the dump to an attackman in the event that the defense remembers to collapse on him. Frankly, we need to do more of that.

His second goal was very impressive as he did have defenders collapsing on him. He took two or three good slashes on the arm and stick and still maintained possession and scored.

I think it is very cool that Ethan has found a place at long stick and scored this weekend. Ethan is from my high school (Andrew Collins was also) where he was an All-America goalie, so the fact that he has succeeded at this new spot is great to see. Let's hope the team brings their A-game for the remainder of the season! LGR