ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell men's polo gave defending national champion Virginia all it could handle, but the Cavaliers pulled away late for a 22-15 win over the Big Red on Saturday evening at the Oxley Equestrian Center. The Big Red men fell to 10-3 with the defeat and had its four-match win streak snapped.

After a brief scare this morning that UVa men might not make it when they missed their flight to Ithaca and diverted through Elmira, the No. 1 men's team in the country finally pulled into Oxley to take on the fourth-ranked Big Red. Connor Pardell, Max Constant and Branden Van Loon have been playing well and were looking forward to this match.

The first chukker started off well as Cornell kept the score close throughout the early part of the chukker.  The Cavalilers pulled out to a 6-2 and got within 6-4 at the end of one. Cornell went cold from the foul line in the second and it enabled the Cavaliers to pull out to a 12-7 lead at the half.

The Big Red was not done though, as it found its foul shooting stroke again and fought back to within three (17-14) after three chukkers. The Cavaliers didn't travel all that distance to let the match slip away and came out hard in the fourth and stretched its lead back out to take the game at 22-15.  The seven-goal differential is the slimmest margin of victory for the Cavaliers to date and showed how far the Big Red have come in their efforts to close the gap. Constant led the Big Red with 12 scores, while Van Loon and Pardell eah had one. Cornell was also credited with a penalty goal.