ITHACA, N.Y. – Still scoring at an incredible rate, the Big Red women's lacrosse team remains undefeated after four contests this year. Cornell will have its toughest test of the young season this week, though, as No. 7 Penn State travels to Ithaca for a 4 p.m. game on Wednesday.
GAME INFORMATION
GAME #5: No. 14 Cornell vs. No. 7 Penn State
GAME TIME: Wednesday, March 13, 4 p.m.
GAME SITE: Schoellkopf Field (Ithaca, N.Y.)
SERIES RECORD: Penn State leads 3-1
LAST MEETING: Cornell won 11-9 on March 3, 2001
2013 RECORDS: Cornell (4-0); Penn State (4-2)
LIVE STATS:
Cornell Live Stats
LIVE VIDEO:
Redcast
ABOUT THE BIG RED
Cornell put up another double-digit offensive performance last weekend, downing Columbia 14-7 to move to 4-0 on the season and 2-0 in Ivy League play. The Big Red again got big numbers from sophomore
Lindsay Toppe, who led the way with four goals. Seven other players scored for the Big Red while senior
Courtney Gallagher made a career-best nine saves in her fourth win of the year. Cornell is now 2-0 in Ivy play for the second consecutive year. After Wednesday's game, Cornell will hit the road for more than a week as it plays three games in eight days over spring break.
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 in her 16th 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 142-92 record at Cornell and earned her 160th career win against Binghamton late last season.
ABOUT PENN STATE
The Nittany Lions, based in University Park, Pa., are a quality squad that is 4-2 on the season so far. Penn State won four of its first five games, falling only to a top-10 Loyola team and the nation's top team in Maryland last weekend. The Nittany Lions average 13.83 goals per game, but they allow 11.67 and are used to high-scoring affairs. The leader of the attack is Maggie McCormick, who averages five points per game on 16 goals and 14 assists. Mackenzie Cyr is also a big scorer, picking up 24 points on 14 goals and 10 assists. In net, Emi Smith has an 11.52 goals against average and a .369 save percentage.
THE SERIES WITH PENN STATE
The Big Red and Nittany Lions have only played four times in their history, with Penn State holding a 3-1 series lead. All three of those wins came in the 1970s as Penn State won by scores of 6-5, 21-1 and 20-2 in 1972, 1974 and 1975, respectively. The only other meeting between the teams came in 2001 when Cornell opened its season with an 11-9 win over the No. 14 Nittany Lions. Cornell and Penn State did face off in a scrimmage last season before official games, so the teams may be familiar with each other to a degree.
A WIN AGAINST PENN STATE WOULD…
…give Cornell a 5-0 start to the season for the second consecutive year…be Cornell's second win ever against the Nittany Lions…start the Big Red at 3-0 at home for the first time since 2009…improve the Big Red to 14-11 against ALC teams.
CORNELL AGAINST THE ALC
The Big Red has played 24 contests against the six current members of the American Lacrosse Conference, holding a 13-11 record against those teams. Cornell's record against the ALC is bolstered by a 3-0 mark all-time against Johns Hopkins and a 6-5 mark against Vanderbilt. Cornell is 1-1 against Florida, 2-2 against Ohio State and 1-3 against Penn State. Cornell and Northwestern have never met.
PLAYER OF THE WEEK AGAIN
Cornell sophomore attacker
Lindsay Toppe recorded 10 goals for Cornell last week, and for her outstanding performance she was again named the Ivy League's Offensive Player of the Week. Toppe has won the award in back-to-back weeks after last week getting it for the first time in her career. She had six goals against Colgate, all in the first half, as she came close to the Cornell record of eight goals in a game. She added four goals against Columbia on Saturday. Toppe is the first Big Red player to earn back-to-back weekly awards since 2002, when Jaimee Reynolds accomplished the feat twice, earning Offensive Player of the Week on April 22 and 29 and Defensive Player of the Week on March 18 and 25.
Toppe now has 26 points this season through four games, surpassing her total of 16 points from last year's 14 contests by 10 already. Though still incredibly early, Toppe is on pace to completely shatter the Cornell record for points in a season (74) by more than 20 points.
CAREER BEST FOR GALLAGHER
Since taking over the starting role this season, senior goalie
Courtney Gallagher has all four wins for Cornell. Gallagher made nine saves on Saturday against Columbia, setting a new career high in the process. She has made 30 saves already this year and will set a new season high when she makes four more.
AMONG THE UNBEATEN
Cornell remains one of just seven teams in the country that has not lost a game this season. Other unbeaten teams are Florida (9-0), Maryland (7-0), Navy (6-0), Notre Dame (5-0), Connecticut (5-0) and St. Bonaventure (3-0).
EARLY LEADERS
The Big Red has built its 4-0 record this season largely thanks to a powerful attack, and the teams' fast starts have certainly helped. Cornell has now scored the first goal in all four games this year, forcing its opponents to come from behind each time. Cornell has not trailed all season.
SCHOOL RECORDS IN DANGER
Lindsay Toppe and freshman
Emily Tripodi both nearly threatened school records against Harvard two weekends ago. Toppe's nine points was one shy of Sarah Gur's record 10 points in a game set in 1994. Toppe and Tripodi – playing in her first game for the Big Red – had five assists apiece. The school record of six assists in a game was set four times in program history.
MUCH IMPROVED
Besides Toppe already passing her points total from her freshman season, other Cornell players seeing a larger role in the offense include
Amanda D'Amico (11 points this year, 18 all of 2012),
Lauren Halpern (five this year, 11 last year),
Sarah Hefner (seven this year, 10 last year) and
Rachel Moody (15 this year, one in two previous years combined).
BACK IN TOP FORM
Senior defender
Kate Ivory missed all of her junior year with an injury, but the captain looks to be playing her best now that she's healthy. Ivory leads Cornell with 16 ground balls this year as well as 11 caused turnovers. She's on pace to blow past her career bests in both of those categories as she is 21 ground balls and 12 caused turnovers shy of her career bests.
ROAD WARRIORS
Last season brought success on the road, as the Big Red held a perfect 7-0 record in true road games. The only losses away from Ithaca came in neutral-site contests against Notre Dame in Orlando, Fla., over Spring Break and against Dartmouth in the Ivy League Tournament in Philadelphia. So far this year, the trend has continued. The Big Red is 2-0 on the road after defeating Columbia in New York City last weekend. Cornell's last true road loss came in April 2011 at Syracuse.
DEADLY AIM
The Big Red has scored 64 goals on 116 shots this season, good for a shooting percentage of 55.2. Since the Big Red began keeping track of shooting percentage in 1995, the team has never had a shooting percentage over 50 percent. If Cornell can keep this up, 2013 will easily be the most accurate shooting season in program history.
FRESHMEN SCORING
A large lead in the second half against Colgate allowed multiple Cornell freshmen to get into the scorebook for the first time in their careers. With time winding down in the second half,
Brittany Marriott,
Maddie Kiep and
Jessica Schwab all scored their first career goals.
Olivia Mattyasovszky also got her first career point on an assist.
NATIONALLY RANKED
Cornell moved up one spot in each of the first two weeks' ICWLA Coaches' Poll, but this week saw Cornell remain at No. 14. Cornell did enter the deBeer Media Poll this week, moving from the receiving votes category to a tie for No. 16 with Stony Brook.
TEWAARATON WATCH LIST
Senior
Caroline Salisbury has been named to the Tewaaraton Trophy Watch List, the Tewaaraton Foundation announced before the season. Salisbury was named to the All-Ivy second team in 2012 and was Cornell's second-leading point scorer. A talented player with a powerful shot, Salisbury is one of 51 players across all divisions of college women's lacrosse to make the initial watch list.
SWEET CAROLINE
A breakout star on offense last season, Cornell's
Caroline Salisbury returns as a team captain for her senior year. A walk-on when she first arrived, Salisbury started her career slow but erupted for 44 goals last year to tie for the team lead. She scored a goal in every game last season but the opener at Rutgers, but even in that game she had four assists. She scored a hat trick in nine consecutive games to end the 2012 season and has 10 goals in four games this year.
SCORCHING SCORING PACE
The Big Red was stellar on offense all of 2012, posting the second-highest goal total in program history. The team finished with 227 goals, just one shy of the 2002 team's 228. Cornell also was just four points shy of the team record (311, also in 2002) and 14 assists behind the team record (94 in 2000). Through four contests this year, Cornell is on pace for 240 goals by the end of the regular season.
HATS OFF
Cornell had a player record a hat trick in all of its games last year, and its streak has now been extended to 27 consecutive games with a hat trick. The last time Cornell did not have at least one player with three goals in a game was on March 23, 2011 at North Carolina. On Saturday against Columbia,
Lindsay Toppe's four goals extended the streak for the Big Red.
2013 CAPTAINS
The Big Red will be represented by three captains this season: senior attacker
Caroline Salisbury, senior defender
Kate Ivory and junior midfielder
Chelsea Rowe.
BACK ON THE FIELD
Four returning Big Red players this season did not see any time last year due to injury but should player larger roles this year. Defender and captain
Kate Ivory, defender
Meg Helmer, defender
Christine Ferguson and attacker
Rachel Moody are all expected to see playing time in 2013.
FRESH PERSPECTIVE
A large incoming class of 10 freshmen joins the Cornell roster this season. On the attacking side,
Olivia Mattyasovszky,
Jessica Schwab and
Emily Tripodi are new. The freshman midfielders are
Abby Hanson,
Maddie Kiep,
Taylor Kotas,
Brittany Marriott and
Shelby McNeilly. Rounding out the freshman class are defenders
Greer McBeth and
Catherine Moubayed. All but two of the Big Red freshmen have seen action this season so far.
NATIONAL NUMBERS
The Big Red remains near the top of the nation in multiple statisitical categories through three weeks of competition.
Lindsay Toppe, unsurprisingly, is close to the best in the nation in points per game. Her 6.5 points per game has her second, and her 4.5 goals per game puts her second in the nation. Toppe is also 24th in total points (26) and 24th in assists per game (2.0).
Emily Tripodi is 11th in the country at 2.67 assists per game, and
Rachel Moody's 2.25 assist per game has her at 20th. Defender
Kate Ivory's 2.75 caused turnovers per game places her fifth in the country, and her 4.0 ground balls per game is third best in the nation.
Courtney Gallagher has the 20th-best goals against average (8.5).
As a team, Cornell ranks eighth in the nation in scoring margin (7.5 goals) and third in scoring offense (16.0 goals per game). The Big Red is also eighth in draw controls per game (15.0) and sixth in ground balls (21.0).
CAREER NUMBERS WATCH
Against Columbia:
Approaching career numbers:
UP NEXT
The Big Red begins its spring break trip by traveling to Baltimore for a neutral site game against Albany. Cornell and the Great Danes play on Sunday at 1 p.m.
