Game Notes I Live Stats I Live Audio (Princeton subscription required)

GAME INFORMATION
Game #9: Cornell at No. 17 Princeton
Date/Time: Saturday, April 3 at 1 p.m.
Site: Princeton Stadium, Princeton, N.J.
2010 Records: Cornell (2-3, 1-0 Ivy); Princeton (4-4, 2-0 Ivy)
Series Record: Princeton leads 28-2
Last Meeting: Princeton won 15-8, March 28, 2010 in Ithaca, N.Y.
Live Stats: Available at www.GoPrincetonTigers.com
Live Audio: Available at www.GoPrincetonTigers.com

HEAD COACH JENNY GRAAP '86
Cornell head coach Jenny Graap is in her 13th season at Cornell (120-76, .612) and 17th overall (141-120, .540) as a head coach ... directed the Big Red to the 2002 Final Four, earning IWLCA National Coach of the Year and Inside Lacrosse magazine's North Coach of the Year ... Inside Lacrosse ad IWLCA  Northeast regional coach of the Year in 2006 after leading  Cornell to share of first Ivy League title ... Graap is the fifth head women's lacrosse coach at Cornell and has posted the second-highest win total and has a school-record winning percentage.

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THE STORY LINE VS. PRINCETON: The Cornell women's lacrosse team will battle a nationally ranked opponent and history when it faces No. 17 Princeton on Saturday, April 3 at 1 p.m. at Princeton Stadium. The Big Red kicks off April against a team it has lost 22 straight contests to as it attempts to even its Ivy League record at 2-2 and get back into the conference race.

Cornell brings a four-game skid into the contest and will be attempting to avoid its longest losing streak since 2004. It was in an epic matchup against No. 7 Penn last weekend at Schoellkopf Field at 6-6 with 15 minutes remaining before the Quakers exploded for nine unanswered goals to cruise to the victory.

The Big Red will hope to respond to its four-game skid the same way it did a season ago. After dropping four straight, Cornell answered with wins in four of its next five contests, starting with a road win over a top 20 team (at New Hampshire, 5-3) before also knocking off then-No. 10 Vanderbilt (11-4).

SCOUTING PRINCETON: Princeton has opened the season with a 4-4 record, but has played one of the most brutally challenging schedules in the country. The Tigers have knocked off both Johns Hopkins and Georgetown on the road and its losses have been to Rutgers and nationally ranked Duke (No. 5), James Madison (No. 12) and Virginia (No. 4). Its 2-0 record in Ivy play includes a pair of 10-goal road wins (at Brown and at Columbia), outscoring its foes by a combined 31-11. Lizzy Drumm leads the offense with 23 goals and 28 points, while Kristin Morrison has also posted 20 points (12 goals, eight assists). Lindsey deButts has a team-high 22 ground balls and 23 draw controls and stands second to Morrison (11) with her 10 caused turnovers. In goal, Erin Tochihara has started all eight contests and has posted an 11.03 goals against average and a .471 save percentage. Head coach Chris Sailer became the second women's lacrosse coach in history to secure 300 wins when her Princeton squad knocked off Georgetown 15-14 in overtime on March 29. She already has been elected to the national lacrosse hall of fame.

THE SERIES WITH THE TIGERS: Princeton has a dominant 28-2 edge in the all-time series and enters Saturday's contest with a 22-game win streak between the teams. Cornell's last win came in 1988, an 8-2 Big Red victory in Ithaca. The Tigers have claimed 14 wins in 15 meetings in Princeton, N.J.

SNAP OUT OF IT: Cornell has rebounded from four-game losing streaks each of the last two seasons by getting on a bit of a roll. In 2009, Cornell answered a four-game skid by winning four of its next five, including victories over a pair of ranked teams (New Hampshire and Vanderbilt) and having its only loss be a three-goal decision at No. 8 Syracuse. The previous year, Cornell ran off wins in five of its next six contests after losing four straight. Included among the wins were ranked opponents Dartmouth, Stanford and Yale.

THE DRAW: Sophomore Jessi Steinberg, who leads the team in draw controls and stands fifth in the Ivy League, set a Cornell single-game record by winning eight re-starts in a loss to Hofstra. The previous record of seven was set by Jaimee Reynolds against Brown in 1999, then matched by Charlotte Schmidlapp against the Bears eight years later.

STEINBERG NAMED IVY OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Sophomore Jessi Steinberg earned Ivy Offensive Player of the Week on March 15 after posting eight goals in two games, including the game-winner in the conference opener against Columbia. Steinberg scored a career-high six goals against the Lions.

O'CONNOR, HALE, JOHNSON NAMED TEAM CAPTAINS: Seniors Tissy O'Connor and Morgan Hale and junior Libby Johnson have been elected captains of the women's lacrosse team for the 2010 season. The trio will provide leadership to a young team that features 19 freshmen and sophomores on a 26-player roster.

SHOT IN THE DARK: A near fool-proof way of telling in Cornell was winning a game over the years is by simply looking at the shot total. Entering the season, Cornell was 102-16 (.844) when the Big Red out-shot its opponent. This season, that record is just 2-3.

O'CONNOR A RETURNING ALL-AMERICAN: Senior Tissy O'Connor  became Cornell's 16th All-American, earning second-team IWLCA honors when the team was announced in May of 2009. O'Connor was a unanimous first-team All-Ivy honoree and a first-team all-region pick after pacing the team in draw controls (43) and ranking second in ground balls (30) and caused turnovers (19). The 43 draws was good for third in the Ivy League and ranks second all-time in a season at Cornell.

O'CONNOR, STEINBERG ON TEWAARATON WATCH LIST: Senior Tissy O'Connor and sophomore Jessi Steinberg are on the Tewaaraton Trophy Watch List for the national player of the year in women's lacrosse. O'Connor was on the initial list released in February, while Steinberg's play in the first half of the season got her added in March.

HELMER MAKES CUT AT U.S. WOMEN'S TEAM TRYOUTS: Sophomore Caroline Helmer and former captain Deirdre Lafferty '09 were among 64 players who survived the first cut for inclusion on the 2009-10 U.S. women's developmental team. Both Lafferty, a midfielder, and Helmer, a defender, were among more than 150 players in the Stars & Stripes Division vying for spots at the U.S. team tryouts over Memorial Day Weekend at Cedar Lane Sports Park in Bel Air, Md. The developmental team practices against the national team, developing talent and preparing the senior team for international play. Helmer showed great potential as a freshman, starting in 10 of the team's 16 contests and recording 14 ground balls, 11 caused turnovers and a pair of draw controls.

BIG RED, DEFENDING NCAA CHAMP NORTHWESTERN PLAY IN RUSTY RED CLASSIC: Cornell and defending national champion Northwestern met in the Rusty Red Fall Lax Classic on Oct. 18 at Poly Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn, N.Y. The event provided underprivileged youth with the opportunity to see women's lacrosse played at the highest level, learn from some of the nation's best players and get excited about the opportunities the sport has to offer with a free clinic and an autograph session after the game. The Rusty Red Foundation, a charitable organization founded by Cornell lacrosse former tri-captain Joe Lizzio, helps youth programs across the United States. Lizzio, a former managing director at Citigroup, went from Wall Street to Italy where he now owns the Stefano Berti Vineyards and Winery. Rusty Red Wine was developed by Lizzio, who donates all profits from the sales of this wine to help to endow scholarships for underprivileged children and to fund community athletic projects in needy neighborhoods. Lizzio's daughter, Veronica, is a freshman midfielder on the Big Red women's lacrosse team.     

WOMEN'S LAX SUMMERS IN EUROPE: The Big Red women's lacrosse team went on a 10-day tour of Europe from June 2-11, 2009 that featured trips to Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. Cornell played a semi-professional team and the Austrian and Czech national teams in preparation for their competition at the 2009 FIL Women's World Cup. The Big Red won all three matches, improving its record to 12-3 all-time on foreign tours.

IVY LEAGUE ADDS POSTSEASON TOURNAMENT IN 2010: Former Ivy League Executive Director Jeff Orleans announced last January that the Ivy League will begin four-team tournaments in spring 2010 to determine the Ivy League's automatic qualifying institutions to the NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Lacrosse Championships. The winners of the Ivy League championship will continue to be determined by results of the League's round-robin competitions. Each tournament will include the top four teams in Ivy League regular season round-robin competition and will be hosted by the round-robin winner. The men's tournament will be the season's last weekend (Friday-Sunday, May 7-9, 2010) and the women's tournament will be the preceding weekend (April 30-May 2).

NEXT UP: The Big Red returns home to face Dartmouth on Saturday, April 10 at noon at Schoellkopf Field.