ITHACA, N.Y. – After losing a heartbreaker at No. 3 North Carolina on Wednesday by just one goal, the No. 10 Cornell women's lacrosse team is hungry for a victory as it returns to Ivy League play this weekend. The Big Red travels to Penn for a game at Franklin Field on Sunday at 1 p.m.
GAME INFORMATION
GAME #8: No. 10 Cornell at Penn
GAME TIME: Sunday, March 24, 1 p.m.
GAME SITE: Franklin Field (Philadelphia)
SERIES RECORD: Penn leads 23-15
LAST MEETING: Penn won 11-10 on March 24, 2012
2013 RECORDS: Cornell (6-1, 2-0 Ivy League); Penn (2-3, 2-0 Ivy League)
LIVE STATS:
Cornell Live Stats
LIVE VIDEO:
Penn Video
ABOUT THE BIG RED
In its most recent game of the season, Cornell traveled to No. 3 North Carolina and took a stunning 10-7 lead against the Tar Heels on the strength of a six-goal run. But with 10 minutes left, North Carolina stormed back and tallied the final four goals of the evening to come away with a narrow 11-10 victory.
Caroline Salisbury and
Amanda D'Amico had three goals each for Cornell while
Courtney Gallagher tied a career high with nine saves, but in the end the Tar Heels had just enough to emerge as the victors. Cornell, now at 6-1 on the season and No. 10 in the country, is 2-0 in Ivy League play and will be taking on the only other 2-0 Ivy team this weekend. Cornell is the highest ranked team in the 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 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 careerwin against Binghamton late last season.
ABOUT PENN
The Quakers, based in Philadelphia, are 3-3 on the year so far, though two of their three wins have come against Ivy competition. Penn lost earlier in the season to Drexel, North Carolina and Rutgers before defeating Harvard and Yale in back-to-back weekends. The Quakers came away with a 14-13 overtime win against Vanderbilt on Thursday. Iris Williamson is far and away the team's leading scorer, tallying 17 goals and no assists for 17 points. Meredith Cain also has double digit points on eight goals and five assists. In net, Lucy Ferguson has earned most of the time, holding an 8.83 goals against average and a .480 save percentage.
THE SERIES WITH PENN
The Big Red and Quakers are frequent foes, as the teams have met 38 times over the years. Penn holds a 23-15 edge in the lifetime series, including the last six consecutive matchups. The Big Red's last win against Penn came in 2006, a year that it won the Ivy League championship. Last season, Penn came away with a narrow 11-10 victory on Schoellkopf Field. The Quakers took an 8-7 lead into halftime, and the defenses played much better in the second half, allowing just three goals for each side.
Jessi Steinberg '12 had five goals to lead the Big Red in that contest.
A WIN AGAINST PENN WOULD…
…give Cornell a 7-1 record overall...be Cornell's first win against the Quakers since 2006…start Cornell off 3-0 in the Ivy League for the first time since 1993.
RIGHT ON THEIR HEELS
The Big Red narrowly missed its second ever victory against a top-three program on Wednesday night when it could not hold on to a 10-7 lead at No. 3 North Carolina. Cornell's only victory against a team ranked in the top three was a season-closing win against No. 2 Florida at the end of the 2011 campaign.
SAVING THE DAY
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 then tied that career high against North Carolina on Wednesday, saving seven shots in the first half on her way to nine more saves. She has made 50 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.
RECORD BROKEN
Sarah Hefner had not only the best draw control day of her career against Albany on March 17, 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.
PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Two more wins for the Cornell women's lacrosse team last week resulted in 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 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 30 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 Wednesday against North Carolina,
Amanda D'Amico and
Caroline Salisbury each had three goals to keep the streak alive.
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.
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 (22 points this year, 18 all of 2012),
Lauren Halpern (eight this year, 11 last year),
Sarah Hefner (nine this year, 10 last year) and
Rachel Moody (21 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. The Big Red is 2-1 in true road games this year after falling at North Carolina on Wednesday.
DEADLY AIM
The Big Red has scored 102 goals on 200 shots this season, good for a shooting percentage of 51.0. 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 seven contests this year, Cornell is on pace for 219 goals by the end of the regular season.
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 North Carolina:
Approaching career numbers:
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Sarah Hefner's next point is her 20th and her next draw control will be her 40th.
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Courtney Gallagher's next win will be her 10th, and she is three saves away from 100.
UP NEXT
With three consecutive road games behind it, the Big Red returns to Schoellkopf Field for an Ivy League battle against Princeton on March 30 at 3 p.m.
