Princeton And Cornell Meet For The Ivy League Championship

Saturday, April 29

Ithaca, N.Y.

12:00 PM

Princeton University

Cornell

Pace Billings and the TIgers play at Cornell Saturday at noon for the Ivy League title.

Photo by: Shelley M. Szwast

Princeton And Cornell Meet For The Ivy League Championship

April 28, 2023 | Men's Lacrosse

PRINCETON (6-5, 4-1 Ivy League) vs. CORNELL (10-2, 4-1 Ivy League)
Saturday, April 29 • noon
Schoellkopf Field • Ithaca, N.Y.
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A year ago, the final weekend of the Ivy League regular season saw a five-way tie for first place at 3-2 and a sixth team at 3-3. This year lacks any of that confusion.

Princeton and Cornell meet Saturday in Ithaca for the outright Ivy League championship, as well as the top seed in next weekend's Ivy League tournament.

Princeton vs. Cornell
Five Storylines

Ivy update
Princeton and Cornell are both 4-1 in the league. The Tigers have won four straight Ivy games since opening with a 9-8 overtime loss at Penn, while Cornell's lone Ivy loss came against Harvard.

The winner of the game in Ithaca will be the outright league champion for 2023. The league tournament will determine who gets the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

Princeton and Cornell have been by far the dominant programs when it comes to Ivy League championships. Cornell has won 30, more than any other school. Princeton is in second, with 27. If the next-best team, Brown, won every Ivy title until it caught Princeton for second, it would do so in 2035 or 2036, depending on the outcome of this game.

The Ivy tournament
The winner of the Princeton-Cornell game will be the No. 1 seed in next week's Ivy League tournament and will be play the first game at Columbia next Friday at 6 against the winner of this weekend's Yale-Harvard game. The loser of the Princeton-Cornell game will play Penn in the second game, either as the second seed (Cornell) or third seed (Princeton).

In other words, Princeton can only be the first or third seed, Cornell can only be the first or second seed, Penn will be the second or third seed and either Harvard or Yale will be the fourth seed.

Contrast this with the last weekend a year ago, where almost anything was possible, or with the Ivy League women's race this year, in which there are 26 different scenarios regarding the league tournament.

Goal scorers
The Princeton-Cornell game features the players ranked first and second in Division I in points per game. Princeton's Coulter Mackesy is currently first at 5.91, followed by Cornell's C.J. Kirst at 5.83.

Kirst leads Division I goals per game at 4.58, while Mackesy is third.

Goal stoppers
Princeton's Michael Gianforcaro, Cornell's Chayse Ierlan and Princeton's Griffen Rakower rank 1-2-3 in the league in save percentage. Gianforcaro is also second in Division I, while Ierlan is sixth.

Gianforcaro and Rakower split time in the first five games of the year, while Gianforcaro has been the full-time goalie since. In his six starts, Gianforcaro has a save percentage of .614 and has averaged 15.7 saves per game while making at least 13 each start. He had a career-high 20 saves while allowing nine goals last week against Harvard.

More Mackesy
Coulter Mackesy has had a meteoric sophomore season. After a 28-goal, 15-assist 2022 season that ranked him fourth all-time among Tiger freshmen, Mackesy has 45 goals and 20 assists through 11 games.

Among his other accomplishments this season, Mackesy:
* has become the only Princeton player ever with more than one career eight-goal game (he has two this season)
* is one of two players in Division I with at least 45 goals and 20 assists (Delaware's Tye Kurtz is the other)
* is one of two players in Princeton history with multiple career games of at least 10 points (Michael Sowers has five, Mackesy has two)
* one of three Princeton players in the last 30 years with 10 games with at least three goals in the same season (Chris Massey in 1997, Mike MacDonald in 2015); no Princeton player has ever had 11 games with three or more goals in a season
* leads Division I in points per game
* has been a three-time Ivy Player of the Week
* is one of 25 Tewaaraton nominees

Other notes
* Princeton has a 42-40-2 edge in a series that dates to 1922. There have been three one-goal games in the last five meetings between the two. Cornell won last year's game 18-15 after leading 13-5 early in the third quarter. Matt Madalon is 2-3 as a head coach against Cornell.

* Princeton leads the Ivy League and is fourth nationally in fewest turnovers per game (13.64).

* The Princeton-Cornell game features three of the 25 players who are Tewaaraton Award nominees: Princeton's Coulter Mackesy and Cornell's Gavin Adler and C.J. Kirst.

* Sean Cameron has 10 goals on the season. He had four in the first six games and now has six in the last five, including his first career three-goal game last week, against Harvard.

* Princeton is 6-0 when scoring at least 14 goals and 0-5 when scoring 13 or fewer.

* Princeton has allowed the fewest goals in the league in Ivy games (49).

* Andrew McMeekin was 12 for 26 with six ground balls on face-off the first nine games of the season. In the last two he is 25 for 48 with 17 ground balls and has won back-to-back Ivy League Rookie of the Year awards.

* Lukas Stanat has eight goals and two assists in his five starts.

* Alexander Vardaro needs two goals to become the 35^th player in program history to have at least 20 goals and 20 assists in the same season.

* Ben Finlay is the only Princeton player who has started every game of his career.

* Princeton has four players who have started all 11 games — Coulter Mackesy (A), Alexander Varfdaro (M/A), Ben Finlay and Colin Mulshine (D).

* Princeton has two players in double figures in caused turnovers, and both are LSMs: Cathal Roberts (16) and Michael Bath (11).