ITHACA, N.Y. – It's not how you start. It's how you finish that matters.
 
After 15 minutes of play at today's men's lacrosse game between No. 12 Cornell and No. 14 Princeton, the Big Red trailed 5-0. The home team had been doubled-up on ground balls (8-4) and had been outshot by 10 (14-4).
 
By the time John Edmonds scored the team's first goal at the 13:49 mark of the second quarter, the Big Red had been held scoreless for more than 38 minutes of game time extending back to the third quarter of its game with Brown last weekend.
 
But the Edmonds goal changed all that and Cornell went on to finish with a 15-10 victory to improve to 10-4 overall (4-2 Ivy) and earn a share of its 29th Ivy League title. The Big Red's win, coupled with Brown's victory over Dartmouth, means that Cornell, the Bears and the Tigers all share the conference crown, with the possibility of Yale joining the mix with a victory over Harvard later this afternoon.
 
Today's results also mean that the Big Red will face Princeton again in the first round of the 2015 Men's Lacrosse Ivy League Tournament, held at Brown on Friday, May 1 at 5 p.m.
 
"To earn a share of the Ivy League title yet again is a big deal to us," said Matt Kerwick, the Richard M. Moran Head Coach of Lacrosse. "Of course we want to be undefeated Ivy champions every year but fortunately today we were able to claim a piece of it again and it's a tribute to these guys and how hard they work and how much they care."
 
"Obviously it was a tough start to that game," continued Kerwick. "We didn't have the ball almost the entire first quarter and to Princeton's credit they just outworked us on the ground balls. Considering we lost the ground ball battle last week against Brown we could maybe start second guessing but our guys did not do that. They kept fighting and clawed their way back into the game and that second quarter was one of the best quarters of lacrosse I've seen us play all season."
 
The second quarter spark began with the unassisted goal by Edmonds and was benefited by the face-off play of Matt Schattner and Domenic Massimillian, who combined to win seven consecutive restarts, allowing Cornell to essentially play a game of make-it, take-it and outscore the Tigers, 9-0 in the quarter.
 
John Hogan added a tally early in the third quarter to make it 10 unanswered goals and put Cornell up by five (10-5), but Princeton answered back with three consecutive scores to make it a two-goal game. The teams traded tallies to end the third quarter with Cornell leading, 11-9, but early fourth quarter goals by Hogan and Dan Lintner, both of which were assisted on by Edmonds, swung the momentum back in the home teams favor. And after an impressive goal by Mike MacDonald made it 13-10 with 9:00 to play, back-to-back goals by Connor Buczek slammed the door on the Tigers.
 
Buczek led the Big Red with four goals, to become the first-ever Cornell midfielder to go over 100 goals for his career, and added an assist to tie John Edmonds for the team high with five points. Edmonds registered a hat trick and added two assists. Dan Lintner also had a hat trick, while Matt Donovan added two goals and one assist. Hogan (two goals) and Bradlee Lord (one goal), rounded out the scoring.
 
For the game, the Big Red went 20-of-29 in the face-off circle, but nearly every attempt was a battle, with the outstanding wing play of Marshall Peters (career-high nine ground balls) and Chris Cook (six ground balls), contributing greatly to the cause. Massimilian won 14-of-22, while Schattner took 6-of-7 off the Tigers.
 
Princeton (8-5, 4-2 Ivy) was led by MacDonald's five points (three goals, two assists) and Kip Orban with four goals.
 
The Tigers had one more shot (40-39) and one fewer turnover (12-11) than Cornell. The visitors were also solid clearing the ball (11-13), while the Big Red struggled (12-18). Both teams registered one man-up goal, with Princeton going 1-of-2 and Cornell going 1-for-1.
 
In goal, the Big Red's Christian Knight stopped eight shots, including five after halftime, to earn the win, while Tyler Blaisdell saved nine in the loss.
 
Notes

• Cornell has now won a share of the Ivy League title in each of the last three seasons and in 12 of the last 13 overall.
• The Big Red closed the regular season with a perfect record of 6-0 on Schoellkopf Field.
• On Senior Day, 13 of the Big Red's 19 points on the day came from seniors.
• With four goals, Connor Buczek became the first midfielder in Cornell history to score 100 goals … He also moves into the top 10 all-time for goals scored by an Ivy League midfielder.
• With 14 face-off wins, Domenic Massimilian becomes just the second player in Cornell history to register more than 200 face-off wins in a single season, joining Doug Tesoriero.
• With five ground balls, Domenic Massimilian is just three shy of breaking the school record, held by Doug Tesoriero, for ground balls in a single season (133).