Off topic: Lacrosse

[Al DeFlorio]

Cornell opens its season this coming Saturday, 4pm, against Georgetown at Johns Hopkins's Homewood Field in Baltimore.  Both teams have top ten aspirations so it should be a good opener with NCAA tournament implications.

The Big Red lost a game-conditions scrimmage to Hopkins 12-11 last Saturday in Baltimore.  Hopkins is picked at #3 in pre-season polls.

[Al DeFlorio]

Incidentally, this will be the second game of a lacrosse doubleheader.  First game at 1pm--Princeton at Johns Hopkins.

[zg88]

What a big game with which to open the season!

Barring a 2000-style, "miraculous" upset of Syracuse (or a follow-through on last year's scare of Princeton), this pseudo-neutral-site clash with Georgetown will be the Big Red's only realistic shot at bagging a "W" over a Top-10 team this (regular) season.

If we miss this opportunity to prove that we can play with the "big boys", then we'll probably have to be beat everyone else (other than the Orangemen & the Tigers) on our schedule to be sure of an NCAA berth.

Contrary to tradition, we're opening the season with a monster game -- no Cortland or Colgate to "warm up with" this year!  GO RED!!!

(Will this game be broadcast??  It would be sweet to hear the lax season-opener, followed immediately by the hockey regular-season closer!)  B-]

[Al DeFlorio]

And this year's Princeton game is at Princeton, too.

zg88 (and anyone else *really* interested in lacrosse), if you aren't familiar with "The Swami," you might want to check out this link for lots of info on this week's games:

http://www.laxswami.com/tw02-02.html

If you follow all the way down to his comments/prediction on the CU-GU game, he gives a link to "listen" to the game. But the link goes to WVBR and I don't know if they're doing the games this year.  Swami can be a bit of a pompous ass, but he gives lots of good information.

Given that there's yet *another* autobid this year for the lacrosse tournament, the  consensus is we'll have to beat everyone else on the schedule if we don't beat either Princeton or Syracuse in order to get a bid.  (By the way, the team favored to win the league that gets the new autobid lost to Maryland last weekend, 18-0.):-(

[ugarte]

Sounds like a great lax day. It is a doubleheader, not a tournament, right? (ie, no game the next day against Princeton or JHU)

At our current poll ranking, we won't make the tournament.  Is that the general feeling around the lax world?

[zg88]

:-( , indeed!  Adding that newest autobid before expanding to 16 teams is just plain sick!

Heh-heh... good 'ol Swami... I "see" that he's still got the "cool tunes" to entertain us whilst we browse his admittedly impressive site!  (He's got us ranked #7!  Wow!  (Cornell's "official" ranking is #15.)  And 6 of 10 "experts" on the site are predicting a Big Red victory over the Hoyas.)

BTW, Cornell has two *FIRST TEAM* pre-season All-Americans this year in senior goalie Justin Cynar and junior d-man Ryan McClay (and two third-teamers).  They are the ONLY TWO 1st-teamers from the Ivies -- none from mighty Princeton!  (I can't remember the last time we had a pre-season 1st-teamer... ??)

So, Cynar is "officially" expected to be the nation's top goalie this year -- that would be two NCAA-best Big Red goalies in two sports in the same year!  (I won't even try to figure out when's the last time THAT happened -- at ANY school!)

The story on the Big Red All-Americans:

http://cornellbigred.fansonly.com/sports/m-lacros/spec-rel/121901aab.html

The preview of Cornell's team/season:

http://cornellbigred.fansonly.com/sports/m-lacros/spec-rel/022802aaa.html

(b.r.a.:  Correct, it's just a doubleheader, not a tournament.)

[littleredfan]

1) i dont understand pre-season rankings for all-americans and such. what's the point of them? to reward people in anticipation of what they will do this year? to create a standard that they have to live up to? i just dont understand...

2) i would argue that neither leneveu nor underhill are the NCAA's best, but i guess thats left for another thread, another time B-]

[Greg Berge]

I think the idea is that there is a large sports information/commentary apparatus that spends most of its time with nothing to do.  Kind of like we at the forum -- only they get paid and are even more ill-informed.

[Al DeFlorio]

Best I can do is Cornell in '67 and '68:  Butch Hilliard in lacrosse and Ken Dryden in hockey were both 1st team All-Americans.

Princeton's Trevor Tierney (coach's son) was the top lacrosse goalie last year, but I don't think Stathos quite made it.

[zg88]

> ...Cornell in '67 and '68: Butch Hilliard in lacrosse and Ken Dryden in hockey...

That was my initial reaction, too -- and it may just hold up.  As far as Cornell is concerned, while we had some awesome lacrosse goalies (Rule, Mackesey, Schimoler) in the '70's & '80's, we didn't have the corresponding hockey goaltending during the same years (perhaps Rule/Cropper in '71??).

As for other schools, I'm not coming up with any that have simultaneously dominated in lax & hockey.  The traditional (non-Cornell) lax powers (Hopkins, Syracuse, Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, Navy) haven't even had significant varsity hockey teams (feel free to correct me on that one).

The one exception is the big "newcomer" to the lax elite, Princeton.  But, they don't quite make the cut in terms of "hockey dominance" (yes, there's that ECAC hockey title that coincided with an NCAA lax championship in '98, but, while that was admittedly nifty, the Tigers weren't exactly a national hockey power that year (or any year??)).

The only other team that I can think of that has had *any* kind of hockey/lax crossover is Harvard.  They're sort of the opposite of Princeton, though:  They've had dominant spells in hockey, but never in lacrosse.

(I could speculate on a Ned-led R.P.I. in the early/mid-'50's, but that's going too far back for me...)

(Disclaimer:  Since Cornell hockey & lacrosse "arrived on the scene" (virtually simultaneously) around '66 (as did I;  thanks to two different "Gods"! ::nut:: ), my interest only goes back that far.  I'll leave it to someone else (old-timer and/or stat-wacko) to explore any pre-'66 hockey/lax dualities (who knows, there may be some moldy, ol' example from ancient Ivy-league lore... ??).)

Once again, I've gone too far, haven't I...    ::rolleyes::

[Al DeFlorio]

Schimoler was a freshman in 1986 when Doug Dadswell was hockey All-America, but I don't think we could claim Paul was "best" that year.

The September press release at the link below says lacrosse games will be broadcast on WTKO, but I haven't seen any mention of a web link yet for Saturday.  I do remember listening to last year's Princeton game on the web.

http://cornellbigred.fansonly.com/sports/m-lacros/spec-rel/090601aaa.html

[zg88]

Hmmm... now if Dadswell had stayed for another year... (?!)

(I still think Paul was "robbed" (in '87) when the NCAA gave 1st-team/G.O.T.Y. ("Kelly award"??) to that Maryland guy (my guesses:  regional bias, Maryland bias, the Terrapins were ranked #1 throughout the season (Cornell was #2), the Beardmore name, the T(w)erp was a senior & Paul was only a sophomore... )).

Schimoler had a wild ride in his freshman year.  Named Ivy Rookie of the Year ('86), he was in on the highest of highs and the lowest of lows:

In one 4-game stretch, the Red laxers destroyed Washington & Lee (26-2, the largest Cornell margin of victory ever), were crushed by Syracuse (22-7), and were stunned by that great Hobart team (23-11).  (Little did we know at the time that the following season would bring such amazingly consistent excellence!)

[Jim Hyla]

I'll leave it to someone else (old-timer

Hey Al, do you think they are talking about us again?;-)

[Al DeFlorio]

Whom else?

The common link between Hilliard and Dryden was...Ned.

[jkahn]

Butch Hilliard was my dorm counselor spring semester '67.  I remember him saying that if Ned took over the baseball team (even though it was very mediocre and Ned didn't coach baseball), he (Butch) was sure they would win the Ivy League title.  That's how much he thought of Ned as a motivator.