Cornell lacrosse 2008 (can't really call it a preview anymore)

Call it the Stickcheck Heard 'Round the World.

With less than a minute left in overtime in last year's NCAA quarterfinal, Albany goalie Brett Queener bolted from his cage to scoop a ground ball. Two passes later, the rock ended up in the crosse of Albany defensive midfielder Tyler Endres with nothing but 50 yards of FieldTurf between him and the Cornell crease. He took off with no Cornell defender in sight. At least not at first. As Endres ran into the offensive box and started looking for cutting attackers, Cornell All-Universe midfielder Max Seibald, his gimpy foot and ankle as thick as a Clydesdale's with tape, started closing after a 30-yard chase. Closer. Closer still. Then Seibald raised his stick like Lawrence Taylor about to chop a QB's arm, and WHACK -- ball flies out, Cornell scoops, badda-bing, badda-boom, game-winning goal, bonkers celebration, and Cornell is back where they belong after a 19-year climb: the final four.

Seibald's play instantly became part of the sport's mythology -- an "I-was-there-when" moment that was the subject of a series of offseason feature articles in the emergent lacrosse media. So it's only natural that folks are focusing on The Play as the watershed moment in Cornell's renaissance. Hey, no Stickcheck, no final four, right?

Maybe so, but for fans who've lived through Cornell's slow ascent, the symbolic watershed moment occurred a week later in the semifinal game against Duke. It was more subtle by far, but I can't get it out of my head. With Cornell down by a mess of goals in the second half, Coach Jeff Tambroni started a substitution chess game, inserting young bench players, some of whom had barely seen the field all season. Those subs helped fuel one of the great comebacks in Cornell sports history.

Tambroni's decision to play guys like Corbolotti and Finn in the semi was partly a desperate move to free up John Glynn to stop Duke's run of faceoff wins, and partly a quest for fresh legs on a hot day. Forget the reason. To me, what mattered was that after seven years under Tambroni, Cornell had at last built enough depth to freely substitute role players in a game against an elite team on the national stage.

It was a moment of arrival. Finally, Tambroni had managed to create something resembling the blueprint in his head: a program built on depth, with a roster full of freakishly selfless and patient players willing to change positions or wait until they're upperclassmen to see the field. A program built for the long haul.

Sound familiar? If you've been following lacrosse in Central New York over the last three decades or so, you've seen this model before. But for some reason it hadn't occurred to me until eLFnik PeterG mentioned it on the phone a few weeks ago. Pleased to meet you, hope you guessed my name: West Genesee High School.

West Genny. If you went to some other New York State high school, those words give you the chills. All those state titles (14 in 31 years under Coach Mike Messere). All those superstars who went on to become college All Americas (like Jeff Tambroni, WGHS '88). It's easy to be dazzled by all the big-name grads and the Mohawk haircuts and the high socks, but West Genny's success under Messere is built on a blue-collar foundation. Brutal workouts. Ritual family dinners. Curfews. And, of course, freakishly selfless and patient players willing to change positions or wait until they're upperclassmen to see the field.

In 2008, Cornell's opponents will learn what other prep programs learn when they underestimate West Genny after the 'Cats graduate yet another litter of superstars. Behind those All Americas are a bunch of new guys, many of whom folks have never heard of, waiting to take their place. In Cornell's case, it might take a few games before some of those new guys gain confidence. But if this team can make it into the NCAA tournament -- and that won't be easy with a remaining schedule lacking any games against teams that are sure bets to end the season in the RPI top five -- they'll do some damage.

OFFENSE. Can anyone remember another time in Cornell lacrosse history when all three starting attackmen were lost to graduation? Pittard, Mitchell and Bartlett took 107 goals with them when they left East Hill. Throw in the 33 goals scored by '07 senior middies Clayton and Lewis, and that's nearly two-thirds of Cornell's 2007 scoring production. Ouch. All-America midfielders Max Seibald and John Glynn are back, but they'll be poled-up and getting early slides every time they touch the ball. Someone else has to emerge to capitalize on all that attention, just as Mitchell emerged out of nowhere when tons of offense graduated after the 2005 season. In fall and February scrimmages, three players showed hints that they'd be new sources of production: sophomore attackman Ryan Hurley, junior attackman Kyle Doctor and junior midfielder Rocco Romero. I've been excited about Hurley ever since I first saw him in the Drexel scrimmage last year. A tall, aggressive lefty, he's the poster child for the new look of Cornell's attackmen: ball-carriers who can dodge from X. Doctor was the surprise story of the offseason scrimmages. He showed signs of quickness, creativity and guile that had been largely invisible during his first two years. Romero, who is recovering from an unspecified injury, is an effective shooter who's brilliant at moving to the right spot without the ball. Other key contributors will be John Espey, a veteran leader who'll likely quarterback the second midfield line (perhaps even when Romero returns); sophomore attackman Chris Finn, a badass hombre with a knack for running from X and finding room to turn and shoot; sophomore attackman Chris Ritchie, a heady feeder; and the Corbolotti brothers from NoCal, who may end up forming two-thirds of the second midfield line. There is, however, one important missing ingredient this year: high-percentage snipers and finishers, a recent Cornell hallmark that fans may have started to take for granted. Early games already have illustrated how useful a cold-blooded killer like a Greenhalgh, a Nee or a Mitchell can be.

DEFENSE. There are plenty of ginormous holes to fill on defense, too, and maybe less depth for infill. The biggest hole by far is the one left by four-year starting goalie Matt McMonagle. After a three-way offseason battle with Butler transfer Kyle Harer and freshman Mat Martinez, Syracuse transfer Jake Myers emerged as the starter. He's decisive on clears and ground balls and throws a nice outlet pass, but other than that, it's fair to expect a significant drop-off in the crease. Cornell will miss the way McMonagle challenged shooters by stepping out from the goal line to cut down angles, much like a hockey goalie. Growing pains in goal will hurt, particularly early in the season, when the Cornell D will have to cope with the injury-related absence of big close defenseman Nick Gradinger as well as Mitch Belisle '07, winner of the Schmeisser Cup for national defenseman of the year. Most observers assume that Cornell will miss Gradinger's size the most, but his greatest asset may be his stickwork. In his absence, long stick middie Andrew MacDonald (the best player to emerge from last year's freshman class) will play close defense alongside Max Dorne, a bruising former short-stick middie, and Matt Moyer. Is it possible for a preseason honorable mention All America to be underrated? I think Moyer is the best defenseman in the Ivy League, Princeton's Cocoziello included, and perhaps a shade behind Seibald as the most exciting and talented player on the Cornell roster. It's fun to watch his footwork, and he's as dependable a ballhander as any short stick on clears. At defensive midfield, sophomore Pierce Derkac will be an able replacement for MacDonald at LSM until Gradinger is back in the lineup, and short-stick defensive middie Danny Nathan is as solid as granite. The third member of the defensive midfield unit, SSDM George Calvert, showed improvement during the 2007 season, but was toasted several times in Sunday's game against North Carolina. With Gradinger out, another injury to a long pole could be calamitous. And let's hope Myers has a Teflon psyche. The Navy game demonstrated his potential; we'll see how he bounces back after a bad game against North Carolina.

SCHEDULE. With no games scheduled against 2008's Big Three (Duke, Johns Hopkins and Virginia) and with a loss to North Carolina already on the books, Cornell likely has lost all hope of a win against a team that finishes in the top five of the Ratings Percentage Index. Not good. Some of the promising teams remaining on the schedule, such as Princeton and Syracuse, aren't exactly en fuego either. Winning the Ivy League will be more important than ever, a tall order with the Princeton and Penn games on the road (Cornell's only two league losses in the last four years have come at Franklin Field).

NEWCOMERS AND RECRUITING. There aren't many nationally hyped superstars among this year's freshmen. So what else is new? Sometimes it seems like the only big-name recruits Cornell gets are players with pre-existing Cornell connections, as in the case of Joe Boulukos (his older brother played for Richie Moran). But you can't question the results; besides, the West Genny model requires loyal soldiers, not preening blue chips. Although Martinez arrives with the most national acclaim, the freshmen most likely to get significant minutes are midfielder Shane O'Neill (son of John O'Neill, a middie on the '76 national championship team) from Washingon State and Chris Livadas, a long pole from Delaware. The biggest change in Cornell's recruiting patterns has nothing to do with geography. Noticed how many underclassmen went to private high schools? It's a major break from the past, when Cornell's roster was overwhelmingly public. The roster will get even more of a prep flavor next year when Cornell will welcome a New England-dominated class, including at least five players from the Founders League. (Fascinating how Tambroni has managed to create a hardcore blue-collar ethos while the roster's demographic profile seems to be going the other direction.) Looks like a very solid group coming in 2009, although defensemen continue to be in short supply. Fans in Central New York will be able to check out two exciting high school juniors who seem to be Cornell-bound for the 2010 season: goalie A.J. Fiore of Ithaca, Inside Lacrosse's 13th-ranked rising junior, and slick attackman Matt Taylor of Fayetteville-Manlius, son of "Jumping" Joe Taylor '80, who was a pretty slick attackman himself.

Quick hits:

Faceoff purgatorio: Will John Glynn and/or Max Seibald continue to get extended faceoff duty? If so, how long before they run out of gas, or worse? Will Tambroni experiment with freshman Kevin Raesly from DC's Landon School?
Ivy newcomer to watch: Penn's freshman midfielder Al Kohart, the next big, strong Ivy middie in the Boulukos-Seibald lineage.
National newcomer to watch: Denver's Canadian midfielder Jamie Lincoln, a 21-year-old freshman.
Best trend: Cornell's average attendance for home games in 2007 was 2,884 (5,406 for Ivy games), making Cornell the league leader in men's lacrosse attendance for the first time since I don't know when.
A few votes: For the first time in the USILA poll's history, that's what coaches recently gave Siena College after the Saints upset Harvard 6-5. With Albany also on the rise, will the Hudson Valley become the new epicenter of college lax in New York State? Nah, but it's nice to see that the sport is growing in areas that are closer to home as well.
2008 quarterfinals and final four locations: The quarters are returning to Schoellkopf, and the championship is returning to New England for the first time since Brown hosted the NCAA final in 1985. Quarterfinal games will be held in Annapolis on May 17 and Ithaca on May 18. The final four will be in Foxboro, Massachusetts. As reported on eLF earlier this year, Cornell will be playing Harvard at Gillette Stadium in a shakedown cruise game at noon on Saturday, April 5 (televised by CN8 -- let's hope by both the New England and Mid-Atlantic versions).
2009 final four location: Foxboro's Gillette Stadium again.

Thanks to P, V, H, A, and C for their insights.

Awesome job as always--we really appreciate your insights.

Hillel Hoffmann
Doctor was the surprise story of the offseason scrimmages. He showed signs of quickness, creativity and guile that had been largely invisible during his first two years.

For those who don't know, Kyle Doctor hails from Skaneateles, NY and is the son of Ron Doctor, the head coach for the Skaneateles High School team. Doctor coached Kyle, as well as former Big Red standouts Eric and Dave Pittard and Derrick Haswell.

As always, Hillel, your previews are all by themselves nearly as interesting and entertaining as the entire remainder of the season. Thank you for all the thought and effort you put into this.

And I thought I had a beef with Schafer's scheduling - though I can imagine that the ACC isn't always all that cooperative about scheduling.

Thanks Hillel - always a pleasure to read the previews.

ugarte
And I thought I had a beef with Schafer's scheduling - though I can imagine that the ACC isn't always all that cooperative about scheduling.

It seems like it's in the interest of the ACC (plus Hopkins) to keep their scheduling as insular as possible, isn't it?

Josh '99

ugarte
And I thought I had a beef with Schafer's scheduling - though I can imagine that the ACC isn't always all that cooperative about scheduling.

It seems like it's in the interest of the ACC (plus Hopkins) to keep their scheduling as insular as possible, isn't it?

Why do you think the four-team ACC, after playing a round-robin during the regular season, has a tournament to determine the "champion" even though the conference doesn't get an auto-bid to the NCAAs?

I'd like to think that we're similar to West Genny, but to misquote a famous saying, "I know West Genny and Cornell, you're not yet West Genny". I hope that you're right and that's the path we're on, but to me the closest college analogy to them was the Syracuse teams of the prior 25 years. Recruit, reload, repeat. I hope we get there.

Jim Hyla
I'd like to think that we're similar to West Genny, but to misquote a famous saying, "I know West Genny and Cornell, you're not yet West Genny". I hope that you're right and that's the path we're on, but to me the closest college analogy to them was the Syracuse teams of the prior 25 years. Recruit, reload, repeat. I hope we get there.

Yeah, you're right, Jim -- the West Genny analogy isn't appropriate if the expectation is more than a dozen championships. That will never happen at Cornell. To me, it's more about the overall tone and methods of the program (in addition, perhaps, to the offensive structure). The way PeterG said it really made it hit home. He said that Tambroni seems to have created what PeterG called a "junior-senior" program -- meaning that, like the West Genny model, the team's depth, selflessness, and blue-collar attitude fostered an expectation that players would patiently learn the system as underclassmen while they waited for an opportunity to play as upperclassmen.

I think Syracuse will do better than implied here - an OT loss to UVa is not bad. The question is if we have a prayer to get a Quality win at Orange expense. The way the D looked against UNC I'd say "Not a prayer" but if that can firm up, maybe. I'm anticipating that Navy will have a strong year, so that's one that's in the bag already. Army will be a big test this Sat.

D right now is missing McMonagle, Belisle, Gradinger, and Vedder from last year. Collectively that's a huge hit, comparable to losing Pittard, Mitchell, and Bartlett from the attack. Don't know when Gradinger will be able to play again.

Interesting lax-on-tv note:

Saturday's Virginia at Princeton game will be televised live on ESPN at noon. Yes, that's right: the Mother Ship, not the the Deuce or the Yooce. I think it's the first live ESPN broadcast of a regular season college lacrosse game, but I might be wrong.

It sure would help Cornell's at-large bid chances if Navy or the remaining teams on Cornell's schedule -- Princeton, Syracuse, Army, for example -- would win some big games this season against the teams that aren't on Cornell's schedule. Is that too much to ask? Hope not.

(I forgot to add how I found out about this: A dumbass phone call with the recorded voice of Bill Freaking Tierney telling me to go to the game. I guess junkphonage is the price you pay for buying tickets from Princeton Athletics. I can't place Tierney's accent. Sort of like a CNY/Mass hybrid.)

Hillel Hoffmann
Interesting lax-on-tv note:

Saturday's Virginia at Princeton game will be televised live on ESPN at noon. Yes, that's right: the Mother Ship, not the the Deuce or the Yooce. I think it's the first live ESPN broadcast of a regular season college lacrosse game, but I might be wrong.

It sure would help Cornell's at-large bid chances if Navy or the remaining teams on Cornell's schedule -- Princeton, Syracuse, Army, for example -- would win some big games this season against the teams that aren't on Cornell's schedule. Is that too much to ask? Hope not.

(I forgot to add how I found out about this: A dumbass phone call with the recorded voice of Bill Freaking Tierney telling me to go to the game. I guess junkphonage is the price you pay for buying tickets from Princeton Athletics. I can't place Tierney's accent. Sort of like a CNY/Mass hybrid.)

I got that same message. I hung up when I heard "Princeton." I'd have been really pissed if I'd known it was Tierney.

The Ivyman puts it to Princeton at the Swami's Site [www.laxswami.com]

Has the lax Swami ever had a good word to say about Cornell? Other than perhaps about a team farther north than Cornell?

Swami trumpets his bold pick of Yale over UMass proving his prognosticating skill.

People starting out in website design can use his site as a guidepost. Sort of like general aviation buffs can benefit from Flying Magazine's "I Learned About Flying from That."

Tell me Swami is using royalty free music. No paid music could be that bad.

Yet we go back.

Syracuse came back to beat Georgetown yesterday at the Dome. Nice to see a future Cornell opponent win a big game for a change.

A few observers on various message boards have noted Syracuse midfielder Brendan Loftus' breakout four-goal performance against the Hoyas. People are linking his production with his old-school shooting mechanics -- straight over the top instead of all this sidearm nonsense that arguably contributed to Syracuse's inaccurate shooting for much of the game.

I'm no shot doctor, but I see a lot of sidearm and three-quarters stuff from Cornell's shooters. I'm not worried about someone like Seibald who can shoot on the run with great velocity with either hand. Asking him to work on his mechanics is kinda like telling Stan Musial to please not lift your foot in that funny way, sir. But I sure miss guys like Henry Bartlett who could catch and shoot, changing levels with one simple overhand motion.

TimV
I think Syracuse will do better than implied here - an OT loss to UVa is not bad. The question is if we have a prayer to get a Quality win at Orange expense. The way the D looked against UNC I'd say "Not a prayer" but if that can firm up, maybe. I'm anticipating that Navy will have a strong year, so that's one that's in the bag already. Army will be a big test this Sat.

Dude, this paragraph (written almost three weeks ago) turned out to be genius. I admit that I totally underestimated Syracuse's ability to give itself a total makeover. These days Syracuse's prospective RPI is looking so promising that Cornell may in fact have an unexpected opportunity for a at-large-bid-sealing high-yield RPI win. And just as you predicted, Navy and Army seem to providing a lot of bang for the buck too.

Wasn't it interesting to see how Yale's defensive conservatism (compared to Denver's recklessness) put Cornell's offense in a very uncomfortable place? This year's team just doesn't have the maturity and adaptability of the 2007 model. The Penn game could be serious trouble.

The offense definitely lost it for about half the game on Saturday. Question though, did Yale change their defense after going down 4-0? Did they just execute better? Or was it more an issue of our guys pressing irresponsibly and making stupid mistakes? I'm not enough of a lax expert to notice a defensive shift in strategy, so to me it looked like we were making rash plays, but they could have been forced into it.

Speaking of Penn, Hillel, are you going to be there? Might I finally get an opportunity to meet the man behind the previews?

DeltaOne81
The offense definitely lost it for about half the game on Saturday. Question though, did Yale change their defense after going down 4-0? Did they just execute better? Or was it more an issue of our guys pressing irresponsibly and making stupid mistakes? I'm not enough of a lax expert to notice a defensive shift in strategy, so to me it looked like we were making rash plays, but they could have been forced into it.

Speaking of Penn, Hillel, are you going to be there? Might I finally get an opportunity to meet the man behind the previews?

I can't remember if there was a shift in Yale's defensive strategy -- I'll have to check out the archived video when it's posted.

To me, what mattered was the difference between the offensive chances made available by Yale's defense compared to Denver's. In the Yale game, there weren't as many opportunities for shooters to get their hands free to shoot from angles that opened up the face of the goal mouth -- or maybe I should say that the only such opportunities were created by Cornell attackmen pressing and dodging solo from X (behind the net), rather than by ball movement. Some of that was the product of Yale's more conservative defensive approach. They were more packed in and less willing to extend their defenders to the edge of Cornell's offense.

Even when Cornell gets opportunities near the crease, the finishes haven't been there this year. There was a revealing quote from Coach Tambroni in today's Ithaca Journal:

IJ
But what has troubled Cornell the most, Tambroni said, is the absence of a David Mitchell-type scorer. A year ago as a senior, Mitchell's deadly catch-and-release scoring ability gave opponents fits around the crease. The left-handed Canadian finished the year with 47 goals and a second-team All-American award. “The last five, six years we've always had a guy that's consistently been a sharpshooter inside,” Tambroni said. “It does two things. One, it softens up the outside so you have more time to shoot from the perimeter. And two, when balls like that are going in, you feel a little more comfortable taking your next shot, whether it be inside or outside. “We're working a lot harder this year to score goals, and it shows.”

Hell yes, I'll be at the Penn game. I'm am so sick and tired of losing to them at Franklin Field, and I can't wait to check out their two butt-kicking freshmen from Long Island, Kohart and Winkoff. You coming?