GAME INFORMATION
GAME #2: No. 10 Cornell vs. Hobart
FACE OFF: Friday, February 20, at 5:00 p.m.
SITE: Greater Binghamton Sports Complex (Binghamton, N.Y.)
2015 Records: Cornell (0-1, 0-0 Ivy League); Hobart (1-0, 0-0 NEC)
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads, 84-47-4
LAST MEETING: Cornell won 12-8, Feb. 22, 2014 in Ithaca, N.Y.
GAME NOTES: Cornell | Hobart

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THE MATCHUP: After losing its season opener to No. 4 Syracuse on Feb. 15, the Cornell men's lacrosse team will seek its first win of the season when it meets Hobart for the 136th time in college lacrosse's most contested rivalry. The Statesmen defeated Siena in its season opener and will look to start a season at 2-0 for the first time since 2009.  The game was originally slated to be played on Saturday in Geneva, but with the threat of inclement weather it was rescheduled for Friday, Feb. 20, at 5 p.m., and relocated to the Greater Binghamton Sports Complex.
 
SERIES HISTORY VS. HOBART — Cornell and Hobart will face off in college lacrosse's oldest rivalry, meeting for the 136th time. The Big Red holds an 84-47-4 advantage in the all-time series, which began in the 1896 season. After the Big Red dropped five consecutive meetings from 1996-2000, Cornell has gone on to win 13 of the next 14 meetings, including its current streak of 10 straight.

LOOKING AT THE STATESMEN (portions courtesy HWSathletics.com):  The Hobart College lacrosse team began its 113th varsity season with a 12-8 victory over Siena on Feb. 13, inside the Adirondack Sports Complex in Queensbury, N.Y. Second-year Head Coach Greg Raymond returns 28 letter winners, including six starters, from last year's 5-10 squad that reached the Northeast Conference Tournament championship game. The Hobart offense will be bolstered by the return of fifth-year senior Alex Love, who needs just two goals to break the career record for goals by a Division I Statesman, currently held by Daryl Veltman '08. The Statesmen's midfield will feature two-time captain and a four-year starter Taylor Vanderbeek as weel as junior Cooper Stefaniak, who earned Hobart's most improved player award a year ago. Short-stick defensive midfield remains a strength for the Statesmen with juniors Teddy Sisco and Sam Washburne playing in front of a close defense that features sophomore Grant Soucy, who emerged as the team's best cover defender a year ago. In goal, sophomore Jackson Brown earned the starting job, taking over for the graduated Peter Zonino (40 career games; .520 save percentage). Brown was impressive in the season opener, making a career-high 13 saves against the Saints and earning the NEC Defensive Player of the Week award. 
  
LAST TIME VS. HOBART:  Dan Lintner and John Hogan scored a pair of goals 35 seconds apart in the final moments of the fourth quarter to erase a one-goal deficit and lift the No. 16 Cornell men's lacrosse team to a 12-8 win over Hobart in its 2014 season-opener on Schoellkopf Field. Despite the late game heroics by the offense, it was senior face-off man Doug Tesoriero that was instrumental in the victory, winning 20-of-24 restarts, including the final seven of the contest to help the Big Red complete the comeback. In addition to his domination in the face-off circle, Tesoriero also picked up a game-high 14 ground balls and handed out a pair of assists. Leading the offense was Matt Donovan, who matched a career-high with six points on three goals and three assists, while Lintner tallied a career-high four goals. Hogan and Connor Buczek finished with two goals apiece and long stick midfielder Connor Hunt scored once. Hobart was led by the outstanding play of senior goalie Peter Zonino, who finished one off his career-high with 18 saves, including some spectacular ones early on to keep the game close. The Statesmen were led on offense by Jake McHenry's three goals, while All-American Alex Love finished with two goals and one assist. Cornell held the significant edge in shots (45-24) and ground balls (37-17), with Tesoriero coming just three ground balls shy of matching the entire Hobart team. The Big Red was nearly perfect on the clear (17-of-18), while Hobart cleared just 19-of-23. Cornell also managed to convert 2-of-3 man-up chances while the defense held the Statesmen to an 0-for-5 performance.

CORNELL VS. THE NEC – The Big Red had never played a member of the NEC conference prior to last season when Hobart joined the league. Cornell is 84-47-4 all-time vs. Hobart, but has never faced Bryant, Mount St. Mary's, Robert Morris, Sacred Heart, Saint Joseph's or Wagner.

A WIN OVER HOBART WOULD:
• make Cornell 85-47-4 all-time in the series.
• improve head coach Matt Kerwick's career record to 121-107 and to 2-0 vs. his alma mater.
• be the 726th win in program history.
• be the longest Big Red winning streak in the series at 11 consecutive games, besting a 10-game streak that ran from 1910-15.
 
RAISE THE ORANGE AND PURPLE HIGH: Cornell head coach Matt Kerwick graduated from Hobart College in 1990 and went on to coach the Statesmen from 2002-10, leading the team to a pair of NCAA appearances and a Patriot League championship in 2002.
 
MOST CONTESTED: With this season's 136th meeting, the Cornell/Hobart game is the most contested game in the history of collegiate lacrosse, followed by Johns Hopkins vs. Maryland at 112 meetings. While the two teams have met more often than any other two teams in the history of the game, Hobart is not the Big Red's oldest rival. That distinction is held by Lehigh, who first played Cornell in 1893. Next on the list is Johns Hopkins, which met the Big Red for the first time in 1894. Cornell's oldest rival in a series that is still active today is none other than Harvard, who first played the Big Red in 1895. Cornell and the Statesmen first met in 1896, but often played twice a season prior to 1937.

THE HEAD COACH: Matt Kerwick was named the Richard M. Moran Head Coach of Men's Lacrosse at Cornell University on June 11, 2014. Kerwick, who served in the position on an interim basis during the 2014 season, became the 11th head coach in the programs' 122-year history ... Kerwick has 16 years of head coaching experience (120-107) with stints at Jacksonville University, Hobart, Alfred and Randolph-Macon. 
 
PRESEASON ALL-AMERICANS:  Cornell had three players named to the 2015 Face-Off Magazine Preseason All-American list. Connor Buczek was a first-team selection, while Jordan Stevens and Matt Donovan were named to the second- and third-team, respectively.
 
EARLIEST START: The Feb. 15 start to the season was the earliest in Cornell program history. Previously, the earliest the Big Red had ever started a season came in an 18-6 victory at Binghamton on Feb. 21, 2009 ... By comparison, in1892, Cornell's first-ever season, the team played its first contest on May 28. 
 
FOR STARTERS:  Cornell is 64-51-5 all-time in season openers, having an 11-year streak snapped this season with a 14-6 loss at No. 4 Syracuse.

EMPIRE STATE OF MIND:  Cornell has traditionally been very successful against collegiate teams from New York state, posting an all-time record of 278-161-7 (.631) … The Big Red will face seven teams from New York in 2015.

RANKED OPPONENTS:  The Big Red's 2015 season currently features seven opponents ranked in the USILA Coaches Poll – Syracuse (second) Virginia, (sixth), Harvard (12th), Albany (13th), Penn (14th), Yale (16th), and Colgate (20th).

ELITE COMPANY:  Over the past 10 seasons (2005-2014) only eight schools have registered 100 victories – Duke (151), UVA (127), Cornell (121), Syracuse (118), Notre Dame (114), Denver (113), Maryland (112), Hopkins (111) … During that span, only six have won at least 70 percent of its games – Duke (.803), Cornell (.766), Virginia (.760), Notre Dame (.735), Syracuse (.728) and Hopkins (.715).
 
MOVING ON UP:
•Matt Donovan ranks 21^st in Cornell history for career points (125) and needs just three more to move into a tie with John Glynn and Matt Crowley in 19th place.
•Matt Donovan ranks 23rd in Cornell history for career assists (45) and needs just one more to move into a five-way tie for 19th place.
•Matt Donovan ranks 25th in Cornell history for career goals (80) and needs just one more to move into a tie with Matt Crowley in 24th place.
•Dan Lintner ranks 45th in Cornell history for career goals (58) and needs just two more to move into a tie with David Key in 44th place.
 
BIG IN THE MIDFIELD: With two points vs. Penn on May 2, 2014 Connor Buczek became just the 14th midfielder in Cornell history to reach 100 career points … He needs just two points to move into a tie for 13^th place with David Key for points scored by a midfielder (106).  

OH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN:  The Big Red will have four captains this season – seniors Connor Buczek, Matt Donovan, Dan Lintner, and Jordan Stevens.

HARD HAT: Brennan Donville has been selected to carry the Hard Hat for the 2015 season. The tradition of the Hard Hat began in the fall of 1999. Midway through the fall season, a player is selected to carry the Hard Hat for the year. The recipient is someone that the coaches feel demonstrates a blue-collar approach to the game of lacrosse; he is driven and selfless, not the most talented player on the field, but consistently the hardest worker. He puts the team first, and embodies how the coaches want Cornell players to act and respond on or off the field.
 
FAMILY TIES:
• Head Coach Matt Kerwick's parents Thomas and the late Patricia Kerwick, as well as his sister Ann, all graduated from Cornell.
• Russell Scott has a total of 14 family members that attended Cornell, while his grandfather, Thomas W. Scott, is a retired Cornell professor of Agronomy … His father, Tom (football), his uncles John Dentes (football), George Dentes (football/sprint football/baseball), Terry Scott (sprint football), and Sam Happel (lacrosse) and his cousins Scott Dentes (sprint football) and Zak Dentes (sprint football) all played sports at Cornell … Happel played on the Big Red's national semifinal team in 1982.
• Chris Cook's father, Kevin '84, and uncle, Ed Cook '86, were All-American lacrosse players for Cornell.
• Ryan Matthew's cousin Matt Sutherland played lacrosse at Cornell.
• Tim LaBeau's father Tim '77 played football for the Big Red from 1973-77, while his mother, Nancy '78, and two sisters, Kristi '09 and Kate '10, all graduated from Cornell.
• Matt Schattner's uncle, Mark Major, played hockey at Cornell from 1984-87, while his aunt, Martha Manilla Major, played soccer for the Big Red from 1986-87.
• Dan Nemirov's mother, Jamie, as well as one aunt and his maternal grandfather all graduated from Cornell. 
• Scott Flynn's grandfather Norman Penney attended Cornell Law School and later served as both a professor in the law school and Dean of University Faculty. 
•Charlie Estill's grandfather Frederick Siefke graduated from Cornell in 1948.
•Troy Revello's older sister Grace attends Cornell.
 
MLL DRAFT FACTS:
•Senior midfielder Connor Buczek was selected second overall by the Florida Launch in the 2015 Major League Lacrosse Draft becoming the Big Red's highest ranked draft pick since Rob Pannell was taken first overall by the New York Lizards in 2012.
•Cornell had a pair of third round selections in senior attackman Matt Donovan (18th – Chesapeake Bayhawks) and senior defensemen Jordan Stevens. (21st – Rochester Rattlers).
•Cornell was one of eight schools with three or more players drafted, but of those eight schools, only Notre Dame also featured a first round draft pick (Jack Near – seventh overall).  
•Since having a program-high five players selected in the 2007 MLL Draft, the Big Red has had multiple picks in five of the last nine drafts. In that same time frame, Cornell has had five first round draft picks, including one selection at No. 1 (Pannell), and two at No. 2 (Buczek and Max Seibald).  
 
ON THE WORLD STAGE:  The Big Red had 10 former or current players suit up on the field at this past summer's 2014 Federation of International Lacrosse (FIL) World Championships, including junior Brennan Donville, Jesse Gamble '11 and Jason Noble '13, who took home the gold medal with Team Canada. Additionally, Mitch Belisle '07, Max Seibald '09, and Rob Pannell '13 earned silver with Team USA, while Myan Adams '13 won the bronze with the Iroquois Nation. Cornell also had two players with Israel Lacrosse (Coldy Levine '13 and Cole McCormack '14) and one with Team Sweden (Sten Jernudd '14).
 
HI, MY NAME IS:  The Big Red has a new faces on the sideline, as Chris Kivlen has joined the staff as an assistant coach. Kivlen came to East Hill following three extremely successful seasons as the head coach at Montclair State where he registered an overall record of 41-13, including a perfect conference record (18-0), three league championships and three NCAA Tournament appearances. For his efforts, he was named the Skyline Conference Coach of the Year each season and turned Montclair State into one of the top programs in the region. A standout defenseman during his playing career for Albany, Kivlen was part of three conference championship teams. 

FRESH FACES:  The Big Red added 14 newcomers to the 2015 roster, two of whom are transfer students.
The group features seven high school All-Americans and is comprised of seven midfielders, three defenders, three attackmen, and one long stick midfielder. Additionally, the players represent six states with seven players hailing from New York, three from New Jersey and one each from Colorado, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

NEXT UP:  The Big Red will open the home portion of its season with a midweek game vs. Binghamton at Schoellkopf Filed on Tuesday, Feb. 24 at 5 p.m.