ITHACA, N.Y. -- A youthful Cornell team found its offense and the team's senior goalkeeper made sure it held up as the Big Red toppled No. 17 Virginia 14-10 on Saturday afternoon at Schoellkopf Field. The home team evened its record at 2-2, while the Cavaliers slipped to 3-4.

Brennan Donville made a career-high 16 saves, surpassing his previous best of nine in a game with 10 in the third quarter alone, and the Big Red closed strong with a 5-0 run in the fourth that put some separation between themselves and the Cavaliers. Nine of the team's goals and 17 total points came from the underclassmen, with freshman Colton Rupp scoring four times, classmate Ryan Bray posting a goal and two assists and rookie Clarke Petterson scoring his first two career goals. Senior John Edmonds had one goal and three assists, senior Ryan Matthews netted a pair of goals, and sophomores Jack Bolen and Jordan Dowiak each had a goal and an assist.

"Obviously this was our best effort of the season thus far," said Matt Kerwick, the Richard M. Moran Head Coach of Lacrosse. "As a coach that's been doing this a long time it was one of the better team efforts I've been a part of. I think every single guy who had an opportunity to go out there and play today did their job. The expectation is to know your role and do it and I just thought it was an outstanding effort from so many different guys. We hand out game balls after each game and there were too many to list today."  

Ryan Lukacovic led Virginia with three goals and an assist and James Pannell, the younger brother of Cornell's all-time leading scorer and Tewaaraton Trophy Award winner Rob Pannell '13, had two goals and an assist. Jeff Kratky won 11-of-21 face-offs and Michael Howard had an assist and eight ground balls for the Cavaliers, whose lead in the all-time series was cut to 10-6. Matt Barrett made seven saves in goal for the visitors.

A high-scoring first half that featured 17 combined goals gave way to a defensive battle after halftime, thanks in large part to the play of Donville. The senior had a new career high save total midway through the third quarter and made a number of highlight-reel stops at point-blank range.

"My defense did a really good job all day of giving me shots I could see and those saves were a product of the defense," said Donville. "The defense has been trained to give up certain shots  ... Those are the shots I'm expecting to see and those are the shots I'm expected to stop. They did their part and I was happy I was able to do my part."

Virginia scored just one goal over the span of 28:34 before capitalizing on a man-up goal with 37 seconds left to play with the team trailing by five. Over that same span, Donville made 11 stops.

"Brennan in the cage in the third quarter was one of the better goalie displays I've been around," said Kerwick. "To have 10 saves … and keep us in a good position to have a chance in the fourth quarter, that was huge." 

Cornell snapped a tie in the opening three minutes of the fourth when Edmonds beat the shot clock with a straight line drive to the cage and finished off his seventh goal of the season. After Domenic Massimilian won the ensuing face-off, he found Andrew Keith to put the home team up 11-9. That opened up the floodgates for Cornell, who scored five straight before Virginia got on the board late to cap the scoring.

The freshmen made a huge impact against a talented Cavalier squad, with four of the Big Red's first five goals coming from rookies, including the first two goals of Petterson's career, as well as the first career point for Anthony Teixeira and first career assists for Ryan Bray. Their steady play allowed Cornell to win its first contest of the year against a ranked team despite being out-shot 42-34 and allowing Virginia to score on 3-of-4 man-up opportunities.

"We've been working all week in practice on pushing transition and feeding guys in side," said Petterson. " We wanted to take chances and make plays and to make errors of commission not errors of omission. That was the message that coach gave us before the game, so I wasn't afraid to take shots."

Massimilian won 15-of-27 face-offs, though he seemingly controlled a number that were lost in ground ball battles in the Big Red offensive zone. In all, Cornell won the battle off the ground 34-32.

The first quarter was evenly played on the field and the scoreboard, as the Big Red scored the final two to head to the second tied at 3-3. Virginia controlled the first 12 minutes of the game, taking a 3-1 lead after back-to-back goals by Zed Williams and Mike D'Amario, but Cornell answered back to knot the game. Petterson, whose first goal on a wraparound behind-the-back shot was a highlight of the first 15 minutes, got on the board for a second time, then Matthews' laser shot evened the score and continued what would be a six-goal Big Red run that gave teh home team the 7-3 lead  midway through the second. After trading goals, Virginia scored three times in the final 2:36, including a Williams goal with one second remaining in the half to get within 9-8 at the break.

Virginia wasted little time tying the score, as Lukacovic knotted things at 8-8 just 49 seconds into the third. Cornell regained the lead 41 seconds later on a Matthews goal before the Cavs again equalized when Pannell scored with 3:01 remaining in the period.

From there, Cornell took control, and it all began with Edmonds run to goal with the shot clock on, Cornell's first goal of the year facing the 30-second clock. Keith, Dowiak, Bray and Rupp joined Edomds in tallying in succession over the span of 7:27 and the Big Red was able to hold off the Cavaliers late to claim its third win in the last four meetings between the teams.

Cornell will have its final non-conference game prior to the start of Ivy League play when it visits Colgate on Tuesday, March 15 at 4 p.m.