CORNELL WINS 2025 MENS LACROSSE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP!

[arugula]

That was fantastic.  I drove my graduate home today, avoided the score and watched the game tonight. Almost as good as if it were hockey!  Added bonus was that at the Government department graduation ceremony the Dean mispronounced Knust. Wyatt wasn't there of course but a reminder of priorities.  I feel very happy for the graduation and the lacrosse just makes it better.  I'd love them to win it again so for selfish reasons I can completely focus.

i didn't have a graduate with me in 2009, i had a kid approaching his first birthday, so i had to watch *that* game on tape delay. glad you had a better experience!

To be clear, I was not at the game.  My wife and O were bringing our graduate home and we watched the game together at home later.

i know! i was saying i was distracted by a different event and it was worse to watch them fall apart all alone, hours after everyone else had the bad news.

that was the worst.  Yesterday, my wife and daughter actually knew because their phones were blowing up during the drive, but they kept a poker face and they wanted to see my reaction

[BearLover]

I'm so used to being disappointed that I'm struggling with how to handle this new development of winning it all!

[arugula]

That was fantastic.  I drove my graduate home today, avoided the score and watched the game tonight. Almost as good as if it were hockey!  Added bonus was that at the Government department graduation ceremony the Dean mispronounced Knust. Wyatt wasn't there of course but a reminder of priorities.  I feel very happy for the graduation and the lacrosse just makes it better.  I'd love them to win it again so for selfish reasons I can completely focus.

i didn't have a graduate with me in 2009, i had a kid approaching his first birthday, so i had to watch *that* game on tape delay. glad you had a better experience!

My younger son was class of '09.  We watched the semifinal game at his fraternity and came realllly close to jumping in the car after the graduation ceremony and driving to Gillette.  OMG would that have been a horrible drive home.

That was a fleeting thought, but we had so much to do.

[CU77]

From poster Chousnake at fanlax (not sure if he's present here or not), a useful summary of recent history:

So let's talk about what Coach Buczek and Coach Stevens have done for this program. Everybody today is talking how close Cornell has come to winning before finally breaking through yesterday. But there is so much more to the story than that.

The Cornell program hit rock bottom in 2017, falling year by year after DeLuca was let go in 2014. Milliman brought to program back quickly in 2018 behind a tremendous offense led by Jeff Teat. After a disappointing 2019 that saw Cornell on the wrong side of the NCAA bubble, the team started 5-0 in 2020 and #2 in the polls behind a dizzying offense that was putting up pinball scores. Then Covid hit and the season ground to a halt.

Nobody knew what the future held - short or long term - for the lax team, the University, or the country as we all remained locked down. Cornell had a hiring and wage freeze and players had to navigate an uncertain future on campus and in the outside world. In late April, Milliman shocked the Cornell community by taking the Hopkins head coach job after Petramala was let go after 20 years. It was a gut punch in uncertain times and left many of Cornell fans feeling helpless and a bit hopeless. After losing Tambroni, DeLuca, and Milliman in the span of a few years, we were shellshocked. The lax world was not friendly towards Cornell and things looked bleak for the future of the program.

A few days or weeks later, Cornell took a gamble and named 26 year old Buczek as head coach and 26 year old Stevens as assistant head coach. Many of us didn't know what to think. Shortly after that, Buczek held a Zoom conference for the Cornell lacrosse community. This "kid" was incredibly impressive, explaining his offense in detail - one that was putting up 19 goals a game in 2020 and was sparkling in 2018 and 2019. He spoke about culture and effort and sounded like a coach who had been doing this for decades. Stevens did the same. Buczek calmed nerves, gave us hope, and made us all feel as if everything was going to be ok.

But there was another major hurdle. The Ivy League canceled sports in 2021 as well. Some key members of the 2020 team graduated, including Teat, who has become the best lacrosse player in the world since then (what might have been in 2020 or 2021!). Remarkably, Buczek held this program together through two seasons of tumult and darkness. He managed to hold on to many of the 2020 and 2021 recruits and still was able to attract talent for 2022 and beyond.

Then, when many were sounding the death knell for Ivy and Cornell lacrosse, he and Stevens led the 2022 team to the brink of a title, beating teams that were playing with 22, 23 and 24 year olds, many of whom left the Ivy League to play with schools in the power conferences. And now, 3 years later, we have the first national championship in 47 seasons. To go from where this program was in 2017 and in 2020-21, to the pinnacle of the sport in 2025 is truly remarkable. Congratulations Coach Buczek and Coach Stevens on a truly momentous accomplishment in the face of long odds and numerous unprecedented hurdles.

https://fanlax.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=652085#p652085

[mike1960]

From poster Chousnake at fanlax (not sure if he's present here or not), a useful summary of recent history:

So let's talk about what Coach Buczek and Coach Stevens have done for this program. Everybody today is talking how close Cornell has come to winning before finally breaking through yesterday. But there is so much more to the story than that.

The Cornell program hit rock bottom in 2017, falling year by year after DeLuca was let go in 2014. Milliman brought to program back quickly in 2018 behind a tremendous offense led by Jeff Teat. After a disappointing 2019 that saw Cornell on the wrong side of the NCAA bubble, the team started 5-0 in 2020 and #2 in the polls behind a dizzying offense that was putting up pinball scores. Then Covid hit and the season ground to a halt.

Nobody knew what the future held - short or long term - for the lax team, the University, or the country as we all remained locked down. Cornell had a hiring and wage freeze and players had to navigate an uncertain future on campus and in the outside world. In late April, Milliman shocked the Cornell community by taking the Hopkins head coach job after Petramala was let go after 20 years. It was a gut punch in uncertain times and left many of Cornell fans feeling helpless and a bit hopeless. After losing Tambroni, DeLuca, and Milliman in the span of a few years, we were shellshocked. The lax world was not friendly towards Cornell and things looked bleak for the future of the program.

A few days or weeks later, Cornell took a gamble and named 26 year old Buczek as head coach and 26 year old Stevens as assistant head coach. Many of us didn't know what to think. Shortly after that, Buczek held a Zoom conference for the Cornell lacrosse community. This "kid" was incredibly impressive, explaining his offense in detail - one that was putting up 19 goals a game in 2020 and was sparkling in 2018 and 2019. He spoke about culture and effort and sounded like a coach who had been doing this for decades. Stevens did the same. Buczek calmed nerves, gave us hope, and made us all feel as if everything was going to be ok.

But there was another major hurdle. The Ivy League canceled sports in 2021 as well. Some key members of the 2020 team graduated, including Teat, who has become the best lacrosse player in the world since then (what might have been in 2020 or 2021!). Remarkably, Buczek held this program together through two seasons of tumult and darkness. He managed to hold on to many of the 2020 and 2021 recruits and still was able to attract talent for 2022 and beyond.

Then, when many were sounding the death knell for Ivy and Cornell lacrosse, he and Stevens led the 2022 team to the brink of a title, beating teams that were playing with 22, 23 and 24 year olds, many of whom left the Ivy League to play with schools in the power conferences. And now, 3 years later, we have the first national championship in 47 seasons. To go from where this program was in 2017 and in 2020-21, to the pinnacle of the sport in 2025 is truly remarkable. Congratulations Coach Buczek and Coach Stevens on a truly momentous accomplishment in the face of long odds and numerous unprecedented hurdles.

https://fanlax.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=652085#p652085

No love for Matt Kerwick, I guess.

[David Harding]

Celebration on campus today around 4:45 the email says. One sad thing about LAX is winning after all the kids for most colleges have gone home.

I suspect we will see recognition at a hockey game perhaps this fall.

I'll be at reunion in a couple of weeks. I hope Connor is around to present a talk about the season.

It's his 10 year reunion.

[underskill]

https://x.com/PatMcAfeeShow/status/1927415340322996283

[LGR14]

https://www.wsj.com/sports/cornell-lacrosse-maryland-national-championship-cj-kirst-935c23d7

[CU77]

https://www.tiktok.com/@lacrossenetwork/video/7509133298682105119

[tretiak]

https://www.tiktok.com/@lacrossenetwork/video/7509133298682105119

It may have taken 48 years but we finally got the Pineapple Suite.

[imafrshmn]

As a fan of Classicism, i enjoyed all the ridiculous allusions to Greek mythology that almost effortlessly wrote themselves into our story as presented on the broadcast. Funny how that works.

[Swampy]

I just re-watched the 4th quarter. MD kind of self destructed. Highly unusual for a Tillman team. 2 failed clears. An offsides. An offensive hold. That's four possessions lost when they desperately needed them.

I would give Cornell more credit. All year long they've had an incredible ride and outlasted teams in the second half. Maryland had trouble with Cornell's pressure and they were probably exhausted at this point.

I hope that pointing out MD's uncharacteristic errors is not giving our team less credit. I agree that pressure from Cornell was part of the reason for MD's turnovers. And also Cornell was not overwhelmed by the pressure on the biggest stage, the mark of a great championship team. In fact, unlike the PSU game, the team moved the ball quickly and cleanly from the opening whistle. They were ready and they were fearless. I also like what djk26 wrote about unassisted goals. This year, this team won playing beautiful lacrosse, they sometimes won ugly, and on championship day they won out of character. They found a weakness in MD's on ball defense and took advantage. Great teams find a way to win.

No expert, but it seemed to me that Tillman limited slides to force our guys to beat their covers one-on-one rather than find the guy left open by a slide.  And CJ and Ryan did.  Ergo, few assists.

I believe Tillman had #39, Laake, a freshman, marking Goldstein. And even after RG30 beat the freshman the first time and scored, they still had nobody slide to help out the second time.

[BearLover]

Maryland's strategy made sense. Take away the pass, make guys beat you one on one. Particularly if Kirst was hurt. Tillman probably thought he had the players to do it, and if CJ was significantly limited, as it appeared he was after the Penn State game, Maryland easily could have won.

[George64]

Here are a couple of articles from the WSJ forwarded to me by a friend.  The first is about Monday's lax Championship game.  Be sure to follow the links, especially if you're new to Cornell lacrosse and think the French Connection refers to the Gene Hackman movie.  WSJ1


The second is about S.L. Price's book "The American Game," that discusses the game's indigenous origins.  I haven't read it, but I just reserved it at the library.  WSJ2

[djk26]

As a fan of Classicism, i enjoyed all the ridiculous allusions to Greek mythology that almost effortlessly wrote themselves into our story as presented on the broadcast. Funny how that works.

Really?  I thought the whole about Odysseus finding his way home to Ithaca was a little silly.  (I thought the allusion to it on the broadcast was silly, not "The Odyssey" itself.)