Cornell 7 at Princeton 11 lax postgame

There were some good points to Saturday's 11-7 loss at Princeton.

- The crowd was huge. The parking areas felt as crowded as for a football game.
- Cornell had lots of fans in attendance.
- Lots of buses came up or down for the game, meaning it had fan appeal beyond Cornell's couple thousand and whatever Princeton could muster.
- We can win faceoffs handily against Princeton.

On the other hand:
- Just when it looked as if we start on a four-goal run with 10:00, Princeton clamped down and pretty much held the ball for five minutes (with a couple giveaways).
- Trying to catch up in the second half we took a lot of low percentage shots from too far out. Had they gone in, it would be have a morale booster and game changer. But they didn't.
- Even Seibald made some mistakes including in the last 2:00 (when it was essentially over) and he lost the ball standing at midfield waiting to start a play ... and Princeton sneaked someone over from midfield and whacked the ball out of his stick.

We are going to rue Harvard's inability to take down Princeton last week.

We're a young team. We're not going to win the NCAAs. We still have a good shot at doing well in one, maybe two rounds. Let's see. Thank goodness Brown is in Ithaca.

[edit add] The losing side is the one that sees the breaks that didn't go their way. (The winning side sees itself as the better team.) I was looking over the game photos (I'll try to post some Sunday) and saw a point blank shot at the edge of the circle that Princeton stopped when it was 2-0 and we were on a roll ... and the Princetron third goal with just 10 seconds left in the first ... and etcetera. We had a lot of shots that coulda, woulda, shoulda gone in ... and if we played this game on another weekend, they probably would have.

If last year's theme was "too many weapons," then this year's is "consistently inconsistent."

I didn't get to see the game, but it sounds like Princeton played well, and we didn't give ourselves much of a chance due to a number of things, not the least of which was sloppy play and throwing the ball all over the place. The only game that featured strong play throughout was Denver, so we probably should expect more of this for what's left of the season.

Having said the above, I think if any of us were asked at the beginning of the season if we'd be happy with a 9-3 record at this point along with a shot at getting into the tournament, most would have taken it. We've had to start all over at attack, and that has exposed a key weakness this year: when we face a very strong defense, we don't have enough balance, poise and experience to overcome it. McMonagle wasn't exactly a replaceable player, and that has also been a gap in 2008. Our defense has been very good at times this year, but we just don't have that same defensive momentum that we so often got from the big saves last year.

Also, we've been somewhat spoiled by a lot of wins and generally very stable play over the past several years. I can't think of the last time that we gave up 26 goals over a two game stretch (like we did against Syracuse and the Darts).

As Bill said, we're a young team. We still have a shot at making the tournament, so there's not much to do except focus on what will be a very tough Brown game next week.

I'm disappointed we lost, especially since we were so far out of it after the first quarter. I guess I'll have to wait to next year for a chance to make fun of Princeton's ready-for-motocross (or at least theUSFL) uniforms.

FarEastLax
I can't think of the last time that we gave up 26 goals over a two game stretch (like we did against Syracuse and the Darts).

2004.

[www.theithacajournal.com]

I can understand losing to a solid Princeton team playing its last home game. But, I didn't think the team played with nearly enough urgency in the second half. Spent what seemed to be way too much time working the ball around the outside when outside shooting wasn't really working often.

One this seems consistent to me (besides the inconsistency), which is when this team is bad - be it for a quarter or a half or a whole game - its the offense that's bad. 7 goals in one half against isn't good, but it's not that bad when Princeton seemed like it had possession for basically the entire 2nd quarter.

The bad version of the Cornell offense takes poor quality shots - from bad angles, from far outside, unscreened, without bouncing it, etc. And they do within 30 seconds or so of getting possession. Leading to an easyish save and the ball going back the other way. Take some time to run around and find an open man for pete's sake. That's of course when they don't throw the ball away or make an ill advised pass into traffic.

Speaking of ill-advised passes, the one thing I'll blame on the other side of the field is Myers has a penchant for a home run pass. Trying to outlet it to the guy streaking down the field between two opposing players. It'd be one thing if the successful passes actually worked - leading to odd man rushes and easy goals. But they don't. Cornell typically (and usually smartly) runs it off to the side and sets off because a break isn't appearing. But why continue to make those risky passes when there's no real pay off anyway? It makes no sense.


Between an impatient, poor shot choice offense and a goalie who likes the pointless risky pass, Cornell must've forfeited at least a dozen possessions to the Tigers yesterday. And that is at least a 4 goal difference right there.