ITHACA, N.Y. – Another come-from-behind victory on Sunday has the Big Red women's lacrosse team undefeated through six games this season. No. 10 Cornell will look to make it seven in a row when it travels to North Carolina for a challenging matchup against the No. 3 Tar Heels on Wednesday night.
GAME INFORMATION
GAME #7:
No. 10 Cornell at No. 3 North Carolina
GAME TIME: Wednesday, March 20, 7 p.m.
GAME SITE: Fetzer Field (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
SERIES RECORD: North Carolina leads 2-0
LAST MEETING: North Carolina won 14-5 on March 23, 2011
2013 RECORDS: Cornell (6-0); North Carolina (7-1)
LIVE STATS:
North Carolina Live Stats
LIVE VIDEO: None
ABOUT THE BIG RED
Playing on a neutral site in Maryland against Albany, the Big Red came from behind for the second consecutive game to defeat the Great Danes 15-13. Albany led 12-10 with 10 minutes to go, but Cornell scored the next five goals in the game thanks to five consecutive won draw controls.
Sarah Hefner had a school-record 10 draw controls,
Lindsay Toppe and
Rachel Moody had four goals apiece and
Caroline Salisbury and
Emily Tripodi each had five points as Cornell won its first ever meeting against Albany. Cornell is off to its best start to a seat since 2003, the last time it went 6-0, and is seeking a berth in the Ivy League and NCAA Tournaments this season.
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 145-92 record at Cornell and earned her 160th career win against Binghamton late last season.
ABOUT NORTH CAROLINA
The Tar Heels, based in Chapel Hill, N.C., are 7-1 on the season with the lone loss coming at the hands of No. 2 Florida. North Carolina is ranked third in the nation and specializes in a stifling defense. The Tar Heels have given up just 6.88 goals per game this year while scoring 11. Kara Cannizzaro leads the team with 16 goals and two assists for 18 points, while Taylor George is right behind with 13 goals and one assist for 14 points. Three other players on the roster also have double digit point totals. In goal, Lauren Maksym has played in every game and holds an impressive 5.33 goals against average and a .538 save percentage.
THE SERIES WITH NORTH CAROLINA
The Big Red and Tar Heels have met twice in their history with both meetings coming in the last three years. North Carolina claimed a 13-7 victory at the end of the 2010 season in a neutral site in Virginia, and the Tar Heels also rolled to a 14-5 victory in the middle of the 2011 season at home. That contest was the last time Cornell did not have a player record a hat trick in a game.
A WIN AGAINST NORTH CAROLINA WOULD…
…give Cornell a 7-0 start to the season for first time since 1987, tying the best start to a season ever for the Big Red…be Cornell's first win ever against the Tar Heels…extend the Big Red's winning streak in road games to 10…be Cornell's 12th win against current teams in the ACC.
CORNELL AGAINST THE ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE
Cornell has a lifetime record of 11-7 against teams from the ACC, and that mark is largely built on an 8-4 series record against Boston College. Cornell is also undefeated lifetime against Virginia Tech (2-0) and Maryland (1-0). Cornell has never beaten North Carolina (0-2) or Virginia (0-1). Cornell has never played Duke.
RECORD BROKEN
Sarah Hefner had not only the best draw control day of her career against Albany, but she also recorded the best draw control day in Big Red history. The sophomore won 10 draws against the Great Danes, breaking the previous school record held by
Jessi Steinberg by two. Hefner had never earned more than four draw controls in a game prior to Sunday.
AMONG THE UNBEATEN
Cornell enters this week as one of five unbeaten teams left in the country. Florida (11-0) has the most wins of the undefeated teams, while Maryland (9-0), Connecticut (6-0) and Notre Dame (6-0) also have not lost in 2013.
PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Two more wins for the Cornell women's lacrosse team last week have resulted the team coming away with more Ivy League weekly awards.
Caroline Salisbury was named the conference's Offensive Player of the Week, and
Sarah Hefner earned the league's Defensive Player of the Week award. Salisbury had the game-winner in overtime against Penn State on Wednesday and tallied a team-high nine points in the week. Hefner had 10 draw controls alone against Albany and 15 total on the week.
The Big Red has now won a Player of the Week award in each of the last three weeks.
Lindsay Toppe was Offensive Player of the Week two weeks in a row before Salisbury and Hefner won this week. Last week, Toppe was 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.
HATS OFF
Cornell had at least one player record a hat trick in all of its games last year, and its streak has now been extended to 29 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 Sunday against Albany,
Lindsay Toppe and
Rachel Moody had four goals each while
Caroline Salisbury put three in the back of the net.
OVERTIME THRILLER
The Big Red's victory against Penn State on March 13 was its third overtime victory in the last three years and fourth consecutive overtime win in the last five years. Cornell has not lost an overtime game since February 2007 against Rutgers. Cornell defeated Princeton by a 13-12 score last season, knocked off Notre Dame 6-5 in 2011 and defeated Rutgers 8-7 in triple overtime in 2009.
CAREER BEST FOR GALLAGHER
Since taking over the starting role this season, senior goalie
Courtney Gallagher has all six wins and has played all but 20 minutes for Cornell. Gallagher made nine saves on March 9 against Columbia, setting a new career high in the process. She has made 41 saves already this year and surpassed her previous season best of 34 in the Penn State game. She is one win away from the 10th in her career.
COMING FROM BEHIND
The Big Red built its 4-0 start to the season largely on the strength of a powerful attack and early leads, and the team never trailed in those first four games. But against Penn State, Cornell never led the game until the first overtime. The Big Red trailed by as many as four goals on two separate occasions but regrouped to force overtime. Cornell also trailed by as many as two goals against Albany on Sunday but rallied for a two-goal win in regulation.
SCHOOL RECORDS IN DANGER
Lindsay Toppe and freshman
Emily Tripodi both nearly threatened school records against Harvard on March 2. Toppe's nine points were 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 (19 points this year, 18 all of 2012),
Lauren Halpern (six this year, 11 last year),
Sarah Hefner (nine this year, 10 last year) and
Rachel Moody (19 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 23 ground balls this year as well as 16 caused turnovers. She's on pace to blow past her career bests in both of those categories as she is 14 ground balls and seven 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 in true road games this year after defeating Columbia in New York City on March 9. Cornell's last true road loss came in April 2011 at Syracuse.
DEADLY AIM
The Big Red has scored 92 goals on 182 shots this season, good for a shooting percentage of 50.5. 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.
NATIONALLY RANKED
The Big Red moved up four spots in the IWLCA Coaches' Poll this week, leaping up from No. 14 to No. 10. This is Cornell's highest ranking since May of last year. Cornell also rocketed five spots up the charts in the deBeer Media poll, going from a tie for 16th to 11th. Cornell was unranked in that poll two weeks ago.
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 five contests this year, Cornell is on pace for 230 goals by the end of the regular season.
FRESHMEN SCORING
A large lead in the second half against Colgate on March 6 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.
NATIONAL NUMBERS
Through six games, the Big Red continues to have players ranked near the top of the country in multiple statistical categories.
Lindsay Toppe is best in the nation with her 4.17 goals per game, and her 6.44 points per game has her in fifth.
Kate Ivory is fourth in the country with 2.67 caused turnovers per game and 3.83 ground balls per game.
Sarah Hefner's 4.67 draw controls per game put her 11th in the country, and
Emily Tripodi is 12th in the nation with 2.6 assists per game.
As a team, Cornell is fifth in the country with its 15.33 goals per game and is second in the nation with 15.67 draw controls per game. Cornell is also ninth with 19.67 draw controls per game.
CAREER NUMBERS WATCH
Against Albany:
Approaching career numbers:
UP NEXT
The Big Red concludes a three-game spring trip with a visit to Penn on Sunday. Cornell and the Quakers square off at 1 p.m.
