ITHACA, N.Y. – The Big Red is off to its best start in three years, but it will get its toughest test of the season on Saturday against No. 7 Notre Dame in Orlando, Fla. The Fighting Irish is the first ranked team No. 16 Cornell has played all season, and  the contest will be an excellent measuring stick to see how the Big Red stack up nationally. The game will be televised live on WatchESPN.com.

GAME INFORMATION
GAME #6: No. 16/RV Cornell vs. No. 7/7 Notre Dame
GAME TIME: Saturday, March 17, 12 p.m.
GAME SITE: Disney Wide World of Sports Complex (Orlando, Fla.)
SERIES RECORD: Notre Dame leads 6-4
LAST MEETING: Cornell won 6-5 in 2OT on March 20, 2011
2011-12 RECORDS: Cornell (5-0, 2-0 Ivy League); Notre Dame (5-0, 0-0 BIG EAST)
LIVE STATS: Info Coming Soon
LIVE VIDEO:  www.watchespn.com

ABOUT THE BIG RED
Cornell is off to its best start since in four seasons with a 5-0 record and an unblemished Ivy League record so far. The team scored 21 goals on Tuesday against Canisius was more than the team had scored since a 22-goal effort in 1994 against Rutgers. The 2012 edition of the Big Red is one year removed from a 6-8 campaign, but with a large group of nine experienced seniors and 10 returning starters, Cornell is expecting to compete in the challenging Ivy League.

HEAD COACH JENNY GRAAP
Jenny Graap returned to her alma mater in 1997 with one goal in mind: to build the Cornell women's lacrosse team into a championship contender. Now entering her 15th year at the helm, the 2002 Intercollegiate Women's Lacrosse Coaches Association Coach of the Year and 2006 Inside Lacrosse Magazine and IWLCA Northeast Coach of the Year has developed the Big Red women's lacrosse program into one of the most successful in the nation. She has posted a 129-88 record at Cornell and earned her 150th career win against Florida to close the 2011 campaign.

ABOUT NOTRE DAME
The Fighting Irish, based in South Bend, Ind., are 5-0 so far this season and one of the seven remaining unbeatens in the country. Notre Dame has scored at least 14 goals in all of its games this season and has not won a game by fewer than three goals. Notre Dame also beat Cornell's Ivy League foe Yale by a 15-9 scoreline on Tuesday.
Maggie Tamasitis leads the way for Notre Dame with eight goals and a remarkable 19 assists so far this season. Lindsay Powell and Jaimie Morrison each have double digit goals, and goalie Ellie Hilling has a 9.05 goals against average.
Notre Dame is coached by Christine Halfpenny, a 1999 graduate of Virginia Tech now in her first season leading the Fighting Irish.

THE SERIES WITH NOTRE DAME
Cornell and the Irish have played a total of 10 times in their history with Notre Dame winning six of those 10 contests. The most recent game, though, went to the  Big Red in double overtime in March of last year, when Jessi Steinberg scored to give Cornell a 6-5 victory over the No. 14 Irish. Before that game, Notre Dame had won the last five in the series.

A WIN AGAINST NOTRE DAME WOULD…
…give Cornell a 6-0 start to a season for the first time since 2003…extend Cornell's winning streak to seven games (dating back to last year)…bring the Big Red's out-of-conference record to 4-0…move Cornell to 5-6 all-time against Notre Dame…be Cornell's first win of the season against a ranked opponent and first since the season finale last year against then-No. 2 Florida...match the win total from all of last season.

GOALS KEEP COMING
Cornell's 21-goal outburst on Tuesday against Canisius was the most goals the team had scored in a game since it reached 22 on May 1, 1994 against Rutgers. The Big Red has scored 20 goals in a game just three times in its history, with the third time coming back in 1972 against in its first ever season against William Smith. The 21 goals were tied for the second-most in program history.

NATIONALLY RANKED
Thanks to a 4-0 start, the Big Red is ranked in this week's deBeer Media Poll, coming it at No. 16 with 35 points. This marks the first time all season Cornell has been ranked nationally. The Big Red continues to receive votes in the IWLCA Coaches' Poll.

CENTURY MARK
Senior attack Jessi Steinberg scored four goals against Columbia last Saturday, going over the 100 goal mark for her career with her second score of the contest. Steinberg is now 10th all-time in team history with 102 goals. If she keeps up her current pace of 2.5 goals per game, she would finish the regular season with 129 goals, good for fourth all-time in team history.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Senior captain Cacki Helmer earned Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week on Monday for a terrific week where she had four caused turnovers and eight ground balls to go along with two Big Red victories. Heading into last week, Helmer led the nation in ground balls and caused turnovers per game.

FRIENDLY CONFINES
The Big Red has played 39 home openers in its history after last Saturday's game against Columbia and holds a 25-14 record in those contests. Last season's home opener was an 11-7 loss to Rutgers, and Cornell lost two consecutive home openers before the Columbia win.

FIVE-GOAL EFFORT
Senior attack Jessi Steinberg scored five goals against Canisius on Tuesday all within the first 31:05 of the game. She had a hat trick after 10 minutes and four goals through 27 minutes. The last Cornell player to score five in a game had been Libby Johnson against Colgate last season.

BALANCED SCORING
Last season, Jessi Steinberg led the team with 38 goals, nearly doubling Katie Kirk's second-best mark on the team of 22. So far this year, eight different players have contributed at least five goals: Steinberg (15), Olivia Knotts (11), Caroline Salisbury (11), Amanda D'Amico (six), Shannon McHugh (five), Katie Kirk (five), Lindsay Toppe (five) and Lauren Halpern (five) are making sure the Big Red attack is dangerous all over. Last season, only six players all year reached the five-goal mark.

HATS OFF
Cornell has had a player record a hat trick in all four of its games this year. In the season opener at Rutgers, Olivia Knotts scored the game-winning goal with 52 seconds left to complete her hat trick. Amanda D'Amico got her third goal late against Harvard. Against Colgate on Wednesday, Caroline Salisbury and Sarah Hefner each earned a hat trick, and Salisbury had four goals to her name. In the home opener against Columbia, Jessi Steinberg scored four times, Katie Kirk has three goals and Knotts had her second hat trick of the season. Against Canisius on Tuesday, Jessi Steinberg scored five goals while Salisbury had three.

CLEARLY PERFECT
The Big Red went a flawless 19 of 19 on clear attempts against Colgate on March 7, marking the first time the team did not have a failed clear since April 23, 2011 against Yale. Cornell has a .913 clear percentage so far this season and had two perfect clear games (at Yale, vs. Princeton) last season.

FIRST TIME'S THE CHARM
Goalkeeper Courtney Gallagher had played in seven games for Cornell over the course of her career, but she had never started until last Wednesday at Colgate. The junior from Yardley, Pa., made seven saves in her first ever complete game and earned her first career victory. It took her just four more days to earn her second career victory when she started against Columbia on Saturday.

TEWAARATON WATCH LIST
Jessi Steinberg has been named to the 2012 Tewaaraton Award Watch list, InsideLacrosse.com announced last week. Steinberg, who led the team in scoring last season with 42 points, is now in the early pool of players who will be considered for the Tewaaraton, college lacrosse's highest individual honor. Steinberg was one of 53 players named to the list across all three divisions of women's lacrosse.

AMONG THE UNDEFEATED
Though the season is just a few weeks deep, the nation's list of undefeated teams is rapidly shrinking. Cornell, at 4-0, finds itself as one of just seven teams still undefeated on the year. The other teams are Northwestern (6-0), Massachusetts (7-0), St. Bonaventure (2-0), North Carolina (8-0), Notre Dame (5-0) and Dartmouth (3-0).

IVY STATISTICS
The Big Red currently leads the Ivy League in goals per game with 15.00 and is second in assists per game with 5.80. The Big Red's 16.20 ground balls per game put it second in the Ivy League, and its 20.80 points per game ranks the team second in the league as well. Cornell also takes more shots per game (30.80) and causes more turnovers per game (9.60) than any other team in the league.
Individually, Jessi Steinberg is fourth among the Ancient Eight with 3.00 goals per game. Olivia Knotts is also in fourth with 1.60 assists per game. Cacki Helmer leads the league with 4.20 ground balls per game, and Shannon McHugh's 3.75 draw controls per game puts her in third among Ivy competition.  Helmer is also second in the conference with 2.40 caused turnovers per game.
Freshman Carly Gniewek, who has played just 38 minutes this season, is second in the league in goals against average (6.39). Kyla Dambach is in third with a 6.96 GAA and Courtney Gallagher is in seventh with an 8.39 GAA. Dambach's .500 save percentage puts her third in the league, and Gniewek is second in that category with a .600.

NATIONAL NUMBERS
The Big Red, through the first three weeks of the season, finds itself near the top of the country in many statistical categories. Cornell ranks eighth nationally in scoring defense, allowing just 7.5 goals per game. The Big Red's 13.50 goals per game also put it tied for 20th in the country in that category.  Cornell is averaging 9.75 caused turnovers per game, which puts it all alone in 10th place in the country.
Individually, Olivia Knotts has average 4.00 points per game this year, which puts her in 30th place nationally.  Her 1.50 assists per game also ties her for 39th.
Senior captain Cacki Helmer is currently fourth in the nation with 2.75 points per game and second in the country with 4.75 ground balls per game.
Shannon McHugh's 4.33 draw controls per game puts her in 20th place in the country in that category.

OH CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN
Four Big Red players have been named captains for the 2012 season. Senior defender Cacki Helmer, senior midfielders Katie Kirk and Shannon McHugh, and senior attack Jessi Steinberg will be leading Cornell all season.

SENIOR CLASS
The Big Red will have a strong senior class of nine players. In addition to the four players listed above as captains, goalie Kyla Dambach, midfield/attack Shannon Tierney, midfield/defense Ali O'Neil, midfield/defense Beth Halayko and attack Olivia Knotts make up an experience core at the heart of the Big Red this season.

NEW KIDS ON THE HILL
Cornell's freshman class is eight deep this year. In goal, Carly Gneiwek will see her first college season. On defense, Gabby Weintraub, Christine Ferguson and Kristen Carr are new to the roster. In the midfield, Skylar Fidel, Sarah Hefner and Claire MacManus will be gracing the roster. Lindsay Toppe is the lone freshman attack this season.

CORNELL BY STATE
The Big Red's 29 players hail from eight different states. Eight players apiece come from New York and Maryland. The lone west-coaster is Kelly Lang from Mill Valley, Calif.

LAST TIME OUT
Cornell's trend of jumping on early leads continued, as the Big Red went up 3-0 on Canisius and also held an 8-1 lead at one point in the first half. The team eventually won 21-7. For the second consecutive game, all three Big Red goalies got in on the action, each making at least one save. Cornell forced a running clock for the second straight game.

CAREER NUMBERS WATCH
Against Canisius:
• Olivia Knotts reached 40 career points.
• Shannon McHugh earned her 60th career ground ball.
• Skylar Fidel recorded her first goal.
• Ali O'Neil picked up her 30th ground ball.

Approaching career numbers:
• Kyla Dambach's next ground ball would be her 40th, and her next win would put her at .500 in her career.
• Amanda D'Amico is one draw control away from 10 in her career.
• Three more caused turnovers would make 50 for Cacki Helmer.
• Jessi Steinberg is three goals shy of 110.

UP NEXT
Cornell stays in the Sunshine State to take on Jacksonville on the Dolphins' home field on March 20 at noon. After that, the Big Red returns to Ithaca for a March 24 matchup with Ivy League rival Penn.