Princeton Drops OT Heartbreaker To Cornell WIth Ivy Title At Stake

Saturday, April 29

Ithaca, N.Y.

12:00 PM

Princeton University

6-6, 4-2Ivy

Cornell

11-2, 5-1Ivy

Princeton

CORNELL

Princeton Drops OT Heartbreaker To Cornell WIth Ivy Title At Stake

April 29, 2023 | Men's Lacrosse

Box Score

IVY LEAGUE TOURNAMENT TICKETS

To the neutral observer, the Princeton-Cornell men's lacrosse game Saturday afternoon on Schoellkopf Field was a brilliant display by two teams who were playing for a championship. Of course, there weren't many neutral observers, just those in Red and those in Orange and Black, and it would be the ones in Red who would get to celebrate — by the slimmest, and for those in Orange and Black, the most excruciating of margins.

Cornell's Aiden Blake scored the tying goal with 1:13 to play and the winning goal with 1:37 gone in overtime to give the Big Red a thrilling 14-13 win in a game that decided the outright Ivy League championship.

The loss dropped Princeton to the third seed in this coming weekend's Ivy League tournament, where the Tigers will take on Penn at 8:30 in the second game of Friday's doubleheader at Columbia. Cornell, now the top seed, will face Yale, who defeated Harvard 14-11 to earn the fourth seed, Friday at 6. The winners will meet Sunday, May 7, at noon for the league's automatic NCAA tournament bid.

Neither Princeton nor Cornell gave anything but their best for the full nearly 62 minutes. Cornell led 6-1 early in the second quarter, but the game was tied at 7-7 at the half and 13-13 at the end of regulation. Cornell won the face-off in the overtime, and the Tigers turned it over after getting an initial stop. Blake beat Michael Gianforcaro, who was outstanding all game, from a shot near the crease for the winner.

Princeton could have packed it in early when down by five, but instead the Tigers fought back to tie things up just before intermission. It was 4-0 Cornell early and then 4-1 at the end of the first after John Dunphey got the Tigers on the board, but it grew to 6-1 before Princeton finished the half with a 6-1 run of its own, getting two goals from Alexander Vardaro and one each from Tommy Barnds, Lukas Stanat, Chrsitian Ronda and finally Alex Slusher with 1:09 to go in the half to finally tie it.

Cornell led by two three times in the second half, at 9-7, 10-8 and 11-9, but Princeton scored the next four to take the lead for the first time on a Ronda goal with 7:11 left. Hugh Kelleher's third made it a 12-12 game with 7:11 to go, and it stayed that way until Vardaro banked his third, with 3:08 left, and it was Princeton with the lead.

Cornell, with time running down, worked the ball to Blake, whose blast from 10 yards tied it. Gianforcaro made a save, his 14^th, in the final seconds, and it was off to OT. Cornell won the face-off but turned it over, and then Princeton turned it over on its own clear. Blake then made that count when he scored the winner.

Stanat led Princeton with his best day ever, with two goals and four assists. Ronda and Slusher finished with two each, and Sean Cameron had a goal and two assists. Coulter Mackesy, the leading scorer in Division I coming into the game, was held with a point by Cornell's Gavin Adler.