HANOVER, N.Y. – The Big Red men's lacrosse team scored 10 unanswered goals to blow open what had been a 2-2 game to defeat Dartmouth for the sixth year in a row, wininng 19-4, this afternoon at Scully-Fahey Field. With the win, Cornell evens its record at 4-4 and picks up its first Ivy League win of the season.
 
Making his first career start, freshman Anthony Teixeira had the game of his young career, finishing with three goals and two assists while four other freshmen – Colton Rupp (three goals), Ryan Bray (two goals, two assists), Jake McCulloch (two goals) and Clarke Petterson (two assists) – finished with multiple points. Senior midfielders John Edmonds and Emmy Poccia both tallied two goals, while Ithaca native Charlie Estill earned his first career start and finished with a career-high two assists.
 
All three of the Big Red's healthy goalies saw action, with Brennan Donville making six saves and allowing just four goals in 45 minutes, before Dan Nemirov posted one save in 11:05. Freshman Teddy Strzetelski did not face a shot.
 
In the face-off circle, Cornell went 19-of-27 (.703), with Domenic Massimilian winning 17-of-20 and picking up 15 ground balls, while Grant Mahler (2-of-6) and Joe Rassenfoss (0-1) also saw action.
 
In addition to dominating time of possession, the Big Red also held significant advantages in shots (51-21), shots on goal (32-11) and ground balls (49-23). Cornell was also nearly perfect on the clear (23-25), while Dartmouth had a dismal 14-of-24 performance. The Big Red went 2-of-3 on man-up chances, while Cornell's man-down defense was perfect for the sixth time this season, holding Dartmouth scoreless on three tries.  Both teams had more than 20 turnovers, with the Big Green finishing with 24, two more than Cornell.  
 
Dartmouth (1-8, 0-2 Ivy) had three players finish with two points each, led by Evan Key's two goals to go along with Richie Loftus' one goal and one assist, and Don Stephan's two assists. In goal, Joe Balaban got the start and finished with seven saves and 15 goals allowed in 32:23, before giving way to Blair Friedensohn, who tallied six saves and allowed four goals.  
 
Cornell got off to a quick 2-0 lead with goals by Edmonds and Matthews, before the Big Green stormed back with consecutive goals to knot the game at 2-2 with just under eight minutes to play in the first quarter. That was as good as it got for the home team.
 
COACH KERWICK QUOTES
We were disappointed with our effort in the first half last week at Penn so this week we've really been focused on making sure the team brought more intensity and played Cornell lacrosse. We had a great week of practice and I think it showed with our high energy level. We knew Dartmouth would come out playing hard and we needed to match that intensity.
 
I thought we were outstanding off the ground. And we really wanted to press on the ride, and play with an assertiveness, which we did.
 
Brennan Donville was a leader for us today. He only had six saves but when the score was tied 2-2 he made a couple of big plays for us and that was important to get the momentum going in our direction.
 
We knew that Dartmouth would play a compact match-up zone, but we moved the ball well. You have to get the defense sliding and make one more pass. We've been emphasizing that all season and we're getting better at it. Today we were getting guys open on the backside and we had the confidence to send the pass in. And then guys were finishing.
 
TURNING POINT
With the score tied at 2-2 and time winding down in the first quarter, Donville had a fantastic stop, and then picked off a pass to kill a Dartmouth man-up chance. That was when the Big Red offense took over. Teixeira started the 10-goal run with his first goal of the afternoon, converting on the doorstep off a brilliant pass from Estill. The Big Red dominated the rest of the half and eventually went up 12-2 right before intermission with three goals from Teixeira, two from Rupp, two from Poccia, and one each from Bolen, Bray and McCulloch.
 
The goal by Teixeira was the first of three in a span of 2:49 to close the first quarter, including a man-up goal by McCulloch and a great transition goal by Bolen that came after a save from Donville led to a fastbreak.
 
Dartmouth ended the Cornell run with a goal by Jack Korzelius with 2:51 to play before halftime, but just over one minute later Edmonds restored a double-digit lead that the visitors would  not relinquish the rest of the way.  
 
NOTES TO KNOW
* Three players – freshman Anthony Teixeira, sophomore Charlie Estill, and freshman Chad Otterman – all earned their first career starts today.
* The four goals by Dartmouth were the fewest allowed by the Big Red defense since defeating the Big Green last season, 8-2.
* With his 15 ground balls, Domenic Massimilian has moved into 10th place in Cornell history for career ground balls with 219.
* With his 17 face-off wins, Domenic Massimilian has moved into fourth place in Big Red history with 350 career wins.
* The Big Red tallied a season-high 32 points (19 goals, 13 assists) and 19 of those 32 points were registered by freshmen.
* Colton Rupp finished with the fourth hat trick of his career.
* Jake McCulloch had a career-high two goals, while Ryan Bray finished with a career-high four points.
* Cornell's man-down defense has not allowed a goal in 6-of-8 games this season.
* The Big Red has won six in a row vs. Dartmouth, and 18 of the last 19 meetings vs. the Big Green.