GAME INFORMATION
GAME #3: Cornell at No. 15 Albany
FACE OFF: Saturday, March 5, at 1:00 p.m.
SITE: John Fallon Field (Albany, N.Y.)
2016 Records: Cornell (1-1, 0-0 Ivy League); Albany (1-1, 0-0 AE)
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads, 2-1
LAST MEETING: Albany won 19-10, May 9, 2015 in Binghamton, N.Y.


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GAME NOTES (PDF)
 
THE MATCHUP: The Big Red men's lacrosse team will travel to No. 15 Albany to take on the Great Danes on Saturday, March 5 at 1 p.m. Cornell evened its record at 1-1 when it defeated Hobart last weekend, 10-8. UAlbany also enters the contest at 1-1 after a 20-14 victory over Drexel this past Saturday. The game can be seen online at www.AmericaEast.TV or heard locally on WHCU 870 AM with Eric Silverman on the call.
 
SERIES HISTORY VS. UALBANY: Cornell holds a 2-1 lead in the all-time series with Albany, defeating the Great Danes in overtime of 2007 NCAA tournament quarterfinals, held in Princeton, N.J., as well as winning the regular season match-up in 2015 in the seventh annual Patriot Cup held in Dallas, Texas. UAlbany earned its first win in the series in the first round of the 2015 NCAA tournament, beating the Big Red at Schoellkopf Field.

LOOKING AT THE GREAT DANES (portions courtesy UAlbanySports.com): Despite graduating one of the most prolific scorers in NCAA men's lacrosse history, UAlbany was predicted to finish first in the American East Conference preseason coaches' poll. The Great Danes earned five out of a possible six first-place votes for 35 points in the poll. In his 16th season as head coach, Scott Marr returns a pair of Inside Lacrosse Face-Off Preseason All-Americans in sophomore attack Connor Fields and senior goalkeeper Blaze Riorden. The team enters the week ranked 15th in the USILA Coaches' Poll with a record of 1-1 on the year. The Great Danes opened the season with a 16-7 loss to Syracuse before bouncing back with a 20-14 win over Drexel. Seth Oakes leads the team with seven goals and 10 points, while Connor Fields has a team-best four assists. Both John Maloney and Bennett Drake have four goals apiece. In goal, Riorden has posted a .492 save percentage to go along with a 15.00 goals-against average.
 
LAST TIME VS. ALBANY: Albany's Lyle Thompson continued his assault on the NCAA record book, but despite his game-high nine points, it was a guy who scored just once that made the difference in sending the Great Danes to the NCAA quarterfinals. Goalkeeper Blaze Riorden scored a lone goal, but his 19 saves proved to be the difference in sending Albany to a 19-10 victory over eighth-seeded Cornell on May 9, 2015 at Schoellkopf Field in an NCAA first round game in front of 3,044 fans in the Crescent. Thompson had three goals and six assists, the last coming with 5:27 to play to tie an NCAA career record with his 221st, while Connor Fields had four goals and an assist as the Great Danes put 19 goals on the board, tied for the most Cornell has ever allowed in an NCAA tournament game (1974, Maryland also in a 19-10 win). In the end, however, it was Riorden's impressive performance in the cage and his even more surprising full-field dash, shot fake and rip for a goal with 4.8 seconds left in the third quarter that ended any Big Red thoughts of a comeback. Connor Buczek became the first Cornell midfielder to hit the 40-goal mark in a single season with two goals to go along with an assist, Domenic Massimilian broke a school record for face-off wins in a season as part of a 24-of-32 day at the X and Christian Knight made a career-high 19 saves, but all of those performances were overshadowed by an 11-0 Albany run that turned an early 2-0 Big Red advantage into a nine-goal hole the home team could never dig itself out of. In an exciting, up-and-down game that featured 29 goals and 97 shots (67 shots on goal), Albany turned the tables on a Cornell team that had defeated Albany handily in an early neutral site contest, 16-9. It was one of just two regular season losses for the Great Danes, who entered the NCAA tournament with an eight-game win streak. The Big Red, who claimed a share of its 29th Ivy League title and was making its 27th NCAA tournament appearance, finished the season with a 10-6 record. The loss ended the career of Cornell's 14 seniors who were part of three Ivy League championship teams, three NCAA tournament squads, one that went to the national semifinals and posted a 44-19 record.
               
CORNELL VS. THE AMERICA EAST: The Big Red is 23-7 all-time vs. the current members of the America East. Cornell is 12-0 all-time vs. Binghamton, 5-0 vs. Stony Brook, 2-1 vs. Albany and 1-0 vs. Hartford. The Big Red has a losing record vs. UMBC (5-6) and has never faced Vermont ... Cornell had won its last 20 games vs. America East opponents prior to the loss to the Great Danes in the 2015 NCAA tournament.

A WIN OVER ALBANY WOULD:
• improve the Big Red to 3-1 all-time vs. the Great Danes.
• even Cornell's record to 1-1 vs. nationally ranked opponents this season.
• improve head coach Matt Kerwick's career record to 125-113 and to 2-1 vs. the Great Danes.
• be the 737th win in program history.
• make Cornell 62-60 all-time when unranked in the USILA Coaches' Poll.
• improve Cornell to 12-11 all-time vs. the No. 15 ranked team in the USILA Coaches' Poll.
 
CAMPUS CONNECTIONS:
• Cornell sophomore Kason Tarbell is related to Albany junior Ky Tarbell (brother) and freshman Trenton Tarbell (cousin). The trio is among five total players that attended Salmon River High School, including Albany's Seth Oakes and Dalton Roundpoint.
• The Great Danes' Eli Lasda is the son of former Big Red midfielder Brian Lasda '77 and attended Ithaca high school.
• Cornell assistant coach Chris Kivlen is a 2005 graduate of the University at Albany and was an assistant coach for the 2007 Great Dane squad that fell to the Big Red in the NCAA quarterfinals.
 
THE HEAD COACH: Matt Kerwick (22-12, .647) 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' 121-year history ... Kerwick has 17 years of head coaching experience (124-112).
 
ROOKIE OF THE WEEK: Following his outstanding play in a 10-8 victory over Hobart, short stick defensive midfielder Clarke Petterson was named the Ivy League Rookie of the Week. He is the first Big Red to be named Rookie of the Week since Christian Knight took home the honor on April 28, 2014. Petterson is also the first member of the defensive unit, other than a goalie, to win an Ivy award for the Big Red since Jason Noble was named Player of the Week on March 4, 2013.
 
BABY BIG RED: Of the 23 players that have seen action so far this season, nearly one-third (seven) are freshmen, including a pair of starters on attack in Colton Rupp, and Ryan Bray, and one of the team's starting SSDM in Clarke Petterson.
 
EXPERIENCE BY THE NUMBERS:
• The Big Red has just four players that have seen action in at least 30 career games – John Edmonds (51), Matt Schattner (46) and Marshall Peters (33), Andrew Keith (30).
• Cornell has 10 players that have seen action in 15-29 games – Christian Knight (29), Tony Britton (28), Sean Doyle (23), Domenic Massimilian (22), Walt Gahagan (21), Brennan Donville (18), Jake Pulver (18), Jordan Dowiak (17), Kason Tarbell (16), and Bradlee Lord (15).
• There are 31 players on the Big Red roster that have played in less than 15 games in their collegiate careers.
 
OUT OF THE RANKINGS: After falling by a single goal to No. 20 Penn State in its season opener, Cornell slipped out of the USILA Coaches Poll for the first time since the 1998 season.
 
EMPIRE STATE OF MIND:  Cornell has traditionally been very successful against collegiate teams from New York state, posting an all-time record of 285-162-7 (.635) … The Big Red has four New York teams on its schedule this season – Hobart, Albany, Colgate and Syracuse – and is currently 1-0 in those contests ... A year ago, Cornell played eight contests vs. teams from New York during the, posting a record of 6-2.
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FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET: On Dec. 21, 2014, Marshall Peters tied the Cornell Department of Athletics record for fastest 40-yard dash, running it in a time of 4.38 seconds and matching the mark set by Max Seibald in 2008. Administered by Tom Howley, Associate Director of Athletics for Athlete Performance, the dash is laser timed and the record is across several sports in the department.
 
GROUND BALL GUY: Domenic Massimilian broke Doug Tesoriero's school record for ground balls in a single season with 150 during the 2015 season.
 
INDIVIDUAL STREAKS
• Domenic Massimilian has won double-digits face-offs in nine straight games.
• Domenic Massimilian has won the face-off battle in five straight contests.
• John Edmonds has registered at least one point in five consecutive games.
• Jake Pulver has caused at least one turnover in six straight contests.
• Bradlee Lord has a team-long eight-game point scoring streak.
 
250 IVY WINS: With its 8-2 victory over Dartmouth on March 28, 2015, Cornell became the first program in the Ivy League history to reach 250 regular season conference victories … The Big Red's 251 regular season conference wins are also the most conference wins by any school in Division I men's lacrosse history.
 
RANKED OPPONENTS:  Of the Big Red's 13 opponents this season, seven are ranked in the current  USILA Coaches' Poll – Syracuse (third), Yale (sixth), Brown (seventh), Harvard (12th), Albany (15th), Virginia (17th), and Penn State (20th) … Three others – Princeton, Colgate, and Lehigh – are also receiving votes.
 
TOP 10 NATION: The Big Red opened the week ranked in the top 10 nationally in two statistical categories – man-down defense (first – 1.000), and turnovers per game (seventh – 11.50).
 
FACE-OFF FRENZY: Domenic Massimilian entered the week ranked 14th in the nation in face-off win percentage (.625) and is fifth overall in ground balls per game (8.0).  A year ago, Massimilian finished his first season as a starter ranked fourth in the nation with a .654 face-off winning percentage. He was also second in the country with 9.38 ground balls per game … For his career, he has won the face-off battle in 16-of-18 games and led the team in ground balls in 15-of-18 contests.
 
MOVING ON UP IN CORNELL HISTORY:
•Domenic Massimilian ranks eighth in career face-offs won (277).
•Christian Knight ranks 13th in career saves (286).
 
BALANCED OFFENSE: So far this season, the Big Red has had a balanced scoring effort, with the attack unit accounting for 12-of-23 points on the season (52%). A year ago, Cornell saw 122-of-256 points coming from the attack unit (48%).
 
WIN NO. 725: Cornell's 12-10 victory over Princeton on April 26, 2014 was the 725th win in program history. The Big Red is now 735-460-27 all-time, and its 736 victories rank seventh among the winningest programs in collegiate lacrosse.
 
ELITE COMPANY:  Over the past 10 seasons (2006-2015) only nie schools have registered 100 victories – Duke (146), UVA (126), Syracuse (124), Denver (121), Cornell (120), Notre Dame (119), Maryland (117), Hopkins (106), North Carolina (102) … During that span, only four have won at least 75 percent of its games – Duke (.785), Virginia (.754), Syracuse (.752), and  Cornell (.750).
 
PRESEASON ALL-AMERICANS:  Junior face-off specialist Domenic Massimilian was named a preseason third-team All-American by Inside Lacrosse Magazine. 
 
OH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN:  The Big Red has three captains this season – seniors Brennan Donville, John Edmonds, and Matt Schattner.

HARD HAT: Marshall Peters was selected to carry the Hard Hat for the 2016 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, as well as his sister Ann, all graduated from Cornell.
• Andrew Keith's brother, Thomas '13, was an All-American long-stick midfielder for the Big Red, earning four varsity letters from 2010-13.
• Ryan Matthew's cousin Matt Sutherland played lacrosse at Cornell.
•Sam Welch's parents, Patrick '85 and Ruth Welch '87, are both former Big Red athletes. A two-time Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association champion at 150 pounds, Patrick is in the Cornell Hall of Fame, while Ruth was a three-year letter winner for gymnastics, serving as team captain as a senior. 
• 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.
•Anthony Teixeira's great-uncle Stephen W. Fillo graduated from Cornell in 1959.
 
NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK:  The Big Red will added 17 newcomers to the roster for the 2016 season. The 17-member class consists of seven US Lacrosse All-Americans, the most to join the program since the 2009 season, and consists of seven midfielders, five attackmen, four defenders, and one goalie. The group hails from 10 different states, including a class-high five New Yorkers, as well as one player coming from Toronto and one from the District of Columbia.
 
BUCZEK'S BACK: Former Cornell men's lacrosse great Connor Buczek '15 has joined the Big Red staff as a volunteer assistant for the upcoming 2016 season. Buczek, a recipient of a prestigious NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship, is currently a student in Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management. One of the best business school's in the country, Buczek is in rare company, as one of just two individuals, and the only one from Cornell, to be admitted directly from undergraduate studies.

UP NEXT: The Big Red returns to Schoellkopf Field to take on No. 17 Virginia on Saturday, March 12 for a game at noon.