On to the semis: Cornell 12, Albany 11 (recap thread)

[scoop85]

Just saw the replay of the game (I had an obligation earlier today, but my friend called me with frequent updates).  Not our cleanest effort, but a lot of that had to do with Albany's play -- very aggressive and excellent with ground balls.  Queener was better than I expected, and their D was solid. They are obviously dangerous offensively, with a number of shifty attackmen and excellent feeders.  Certainly, no fluke.

Siebald is a true impact player, and I hope the next week allows him to get up to full speed (if he wasn't already).


I hope to see a Big Red Sea in Baltimore!

[heykb]

Yes, the face-off violations were pretty much all "jumping the gun." It wasn't so much flinching as flat-out going for the ball before the ref's signal.

Karl

[schoaff]

[quote Liz '05]My favorite play of the game (already mentioned on the game thread):

Max Siebald chasing down an Albany player and diving to take Albany and his stick down, somersaulting to get back up while Cornell picked up the ball and ran it in on offense.  AMAZING play.  AMAZING game.  Totally worth the drive [/quote]

And my favorite comment from the announcers during the game. Right before that play one of them said, "Siebald looks winded."

[heykb]

We enjoyed the game. Along with a ton of other folks, I wasn't particularly happy with Princeton's rule that you couldn't bring umbrellas into the stadium. There wound up being a pile of "I'll leave it here until after the game" umbrellas near the entrance. I actually found my umbrella on the way out. I was grateful for that.

It didn't rain during our game, though I gather it did for JHU-GU. When it kept coming between games, we took off.

Max is a phenomenal player. It's hard to imagine there's a better middie playing lax today.

There were 4(!) goals scored with fewer than 20 seconds left in a period. Only the 3rd quarter didn't get a buzzer-beater. Talk about tense!

Albany could have run away with the game in the first period if McGonagle hadn't been a stone wall. He was remarkable in those first few minutes and thank goodness for that.

Our top faceoff guy had a really, really bad day. There's just no excuse for jumping the gun so consistently. Max was a beast on faceoffs. After the first two or three, it seemed like an anomaly when Albany picked up the ball with Max at the X.

Queener played well when he was in the net and had the amazing saves late in the game. He really should have learned not to go traipsing upfield though, after the first time he lost the ball. Defensively, CU handled his aggressiveness just fine; they probably should have been more aggressive about trying to score on the empty net, though.

I was a little disappointed that the NCAA requires the first OT to be sudden death. It would have been nice to make it a 5 minute OT and then go on to sudden death for the 2nd and subsequent OT's. Not that it would have mattered today.

It's a shame someone had to lose. I'm just very glad we are the ones moving on to the next round.

Karl

[Rita]

Wow!!
Definitely worth the wait in watching this game. I had a class that went until 1 pm and other errands to do so I didn't watch the game until late this afternoon and avoided ELF for the afternoon.

That was one amazing backcheck/stick check by Siebald, definitely the play of the game.

I also was wondering about our "prevent offense" at the end of the 4th quarter. I could understand holding the ball and playing keep away during the EMO. Make the defenders run around, tire them out and do not risk a turnover. However, once they returned to even strength, I really thought they needed to try for another goal. Like Ugarte, I too was thinking "Albany will tie it" when Cornell didn't get the "insurance goal" (probably not a good way to describe a 2-goal lead in lax).

After last week's OT games, I was thinking, that maybe lax OT should be a full 5 minute OT and whoever is in the lead at the end wins (or do another full 5 min OT, then go to sudden victory). Goals seem to come rather "easily" in lax compared to hockey. However that OT period was very nerve wracking.

A great game and LGR in Baltimore!

[ugarte]

[quote Jeff Hopkins '82]The Albany fans were definitely into it.  They even had a few guys in full body paint.  But they pretty much only made noise when they scored, and their only cheer was "Aaaaalbany...Aaaaalbany" like we do "saaaaafety school."  I tried throwing a "sucks!" betwwen the Albanies, and a "Let's go Red" at the end, but nobody would join in on it.  And we definitely outnumbered them and made more noise consistently.[/quote]
I was just kidding, of course. The Schoellkopf Faithful were definitely louder than the Great Danes. Except when we went down 3-0.

[min]

Glynn's GW goal made Sportscenter Top Ten plays (#8) tonight.

[Tub(a)]

[quote schoaff][quote Liz '05]My favorite play of the game (already mentioned on the game thread):

Max Siebald chasing down an Albany player and diving to take Albany and his stick down, somersaulting to get back up while Cornell picked up the ball and ran it in on offense.  AMAZING play.  AMAZING game.  Totally worth the drive [/quote]

And my favorite comment from the announcers during the game. Right before that play one of them said, "Siebald looks winded."[/quote]

My favorite was:

"These two New York State rivals, facing each other head to head for the first time..."

Huh? ::wtf::

[Al DeFlorio]

[quote Rita]After last week's OT games, I was thinking, that maybe lax OT should be a full 5 minute OT and whoever is in the lead at the end wins (or do another full 5 min OT, then go to sudden victory). Goals seem to come rather "easily" in lax compared to hockey. However that OT period was very nerve wracking.
[/quote]
Couldn't agree more.  Used to be that way.  Two four-minute overtime periods, with a short break and change of direction in between.  Cornell won the 1976 championship over Maryland in OT, scoring four goals after Maryland scored the first.  Much fairer way to determine a winner.

[Liz '05]

[quote Jacob '06]Liz, any chance you are going to make it to Baltimore next weekend?[/quote]

None.  SERE school has me in Maine for two weeks, including that weekend.

[schoaff]

[quote Rita]
After last week's OT games, I was thinking, that maybe lax OT should be a full 5 minute OT and whoever is in the lead at the end wins (or do another full 5 min OT, then go to sudden victory). Goals seem to come rather "easily" in lax compared to hockey. However that OT period was very nerve wracking. [/quote]

I could have sworn that's the way it used to be. My memory may be playing tricks on me but I seem to remember a first round game against Adelphi in '87 where we were down something like 10-5 at half time and then won it 16-14 in overtime. Anyone else remember that game?

I do remember that the Cornell goalie's parents were sitting next to me during that game (Schimoler or something?) and told lots of stories about him and there was a girl behind us with an incredibly grating Long Island Accent who seemed to randomly shout "LET'S GO ADELPHI!" every four or five minutes.

[Al DeFlorio]

[quote schoaff][quote Rita]
After last week's OT games, I was thinking, that maybe lax OT should be a full 5 minute OT and whoever is in the lead at the end wins (or do another full 5 min OT, then go to sudden victory). Goals seem to come rather "easily" in lax compared to hockey. However that OT period was very nerve wracking. [/quote]

I could have sworn that's the way it used to be.[/quote]
It was.  See my posting above.

[Al DeFlorio]

Just noticed another game-changing defensive play by Seibald.  

After Levine scored 18 seconds into the second half to give Albany a two-goal lead and a real momentum boost, Seibald came out to take the face-off...and lost it.  The Albany wingman picked up the ball and headed back into his defensive zone.  Seibald chased him like a madman, swung his stick around the Albany's player's body, knocking the ball out of his stick and out-of-bounds, giving the ball to Cornell.  Max scored seconds later, triggering the three-goals-in-19-seconds run that changed the tone of the game from us playing catch-up to them playing catch-up.

Amazing effort from opening face-off to Glynn's goal.

[DeltaOne81]

[quote Al DeFlorio][quote Rita]After last week's OT games, I was thinking, that maybe lax OT should be a full 5 minute OT and whoever is in the lead at the end wins (or do another full 5 min OT, then go to sudden victory). Goals seem to come rather "easily" in lax compared to hockey. However that OT period was very nerve wracking.
[/quote]
Couldn't agree more.  Used to be that way.  Two four-minute overtime periods, with a short break and change of direction in between.  Cornell won the 1976 championship over Maryland in OT, scoring four goals after Maryland scored the first.  Much fairer way to determine a winner.[/quote]

In a modest scoring sport, its always a tough call whether to go sudden death in a sport in OT. Low scoring like hockey and soccer are no-brainers. High scoring like basketball as well. But something in the middle like football and lacrosse are difficult. I see the merits of both. Sudden death, err, excuse me, "sudden victory", is exciting and tense and means every single play can be make or break.

Playing a full 'period' on the other hand takes a bit of the randomness seeming out of it, and makes it feel less like whoever gets the first possession wins (this seems even more unfair in football where the first possession is based on a coin flip). But the numbers in football indicate that first possession does not matter that much (I think its less than 55% win, or something like that). Watching lax these past couple weeks, despite what you'd imagine, it seems the same. Cornell/Albany had a several possessions going back and forth. If I recall correctly, and I may not, I don't think Georgetown or Hopkins won on their first possession (although GTown may have, it was only 30 seconds in - but I'm pretty sure Notre Dame had a possession before JHU won).

While it has the potential to be unfair, all in all, I don't think it really is. And with the excitement it adds to the game, I don't think its going away anytime soon.

[Rosey]

Fred, I think the issue for me is the frequency of turnovers.

In a sport like hockey, where possession changes every 10 seconds, sudden death is clearly a good way to go: a team is unlikely to get more than one scoring chance on their first possession, and even that's very unlikely.

OTOH, games like football and lacrosse don't have such frequent turnovers.  In either sport, the team with possession has a very good possibility of scoring on that possession.  In sports like these, a defined time or even a defined number of possessions seem like the fairer way to go in OT.

Kyle