GAME INFORMATION
GAME #8: #7/8 Cornell Big Red at Rutgers Scarlet Knights
TIME: 1 p.m.
DATE: Saturday, April 1, 2017
PLACE: High Point Solutions Stadium — Piscataway, N.J.
LIVE VIDEO: BTN2Go.com
LIVE STATS: ScarletKnights.com
RECORDS: Cornell 6-1 (3-0 Ivy), Rutgers 7-4 (1-1 B10)
GAME NOTES: Cornell

About the Big Red
• Cornell moved to 3-0 in Ivy League play and 6-1 overall with a 15-6 win at Yale on March 25.
• Trailing, 5-3, after the first half – just the third halftime deficit this season for Cornell – the Big Red outscored the Bulldogs, 12-1, in the second half to win its fifth-straight game.
• The Big Red took down then #4/5 USC, 11-10, on March 19 in a neutral site battle at Boston University. 
• Cornell held a 9-4 lead just five minutes into the second half but had to fend off a Trojan comeback; junior Taylor Reed put a stop to four-unanswered USC goals with a free-position conversion and game-winning goal with 1:52 to play.
• The Big Red went undefeated in the month of March topping Penn (10-4), Colgate (13-6), Columbia (14-11), USC (11-10) and Yale (15-6).

About the Scarlet Knights
• With an 18-8 win over Niagra on Tuesday, Rutgers has now won five of its last six games.
• The Scarlet Knights have scored at least 15 goals in three out of its past four games while Kristina Dunphey has scored 13 goals in the past five outings.
• Rutgers has gone 0-2 against common opponents with Cornell, dropping games to Penn (11-9) and Penn State (18-7).
• Dunphey leads the team in caused turnovers (11) and is tied for the team lead in points (20g, 9a) with Amanda Turturro (15g, 14a).

The Series with the Scarlet Knights
• Cornell holds an all-time series lead of 13-4 against Rutgers, including a 10-4 record under head coach Jenny Graap.
• The Big Red last faced the Scarlet Knights on March 22, 2014 in Ithaca, dropping the game, 10-9. 
• The two teams first squared off in 1991, with Cornell winning the first 10 matchups. 

A Win Would…
• Improve Cornell's record to 7-1 overall.
• Mark the sixth-straight win for the Big Red.
• Bump Cornell's all-time series record against Rutgers to 14-4 overall and 11-4 under head coach Jenny Graap.
• Move Cornell's record away from Schoellkopf Field to 6-0, which would tie for the best road start in program history.

About Head Coach Jenny Graap '86
• Now in her 20th season directing the Cornell women's lacrosse program in 2017, Jenny Graap amassed a 180-120 record in her first 19 seasons as the head coach of the Big Red, with her 200th overall career win coming in the form of a 11-10 win over Penn in the 2016 Ivy League Tournament Championship. 
• Graap began her head coaching career at George Mason, taking over the program in its first sponsored season in 1994 and amassing a 21-44 record over four years.
• Cornell has made the Ivy League tournament each of the last five seasons and six of the seven years that the tournament has been held. 
• Graap guided the Big Red to back-to-back NCAA Tournaments in 2001 and 2002 – reaching the semifinals in the latter year – and also brought the team to the tournament in 2006 and 2016. 
• Since she returned to her alma mater in 1997, Graap has led the team to postseason play nine times and has won at least 10 games eight times as well.

Campus Connection
• Assistant Coach Bill Olin is a 2010 graduate of Rutgers and was a four-year starting goalkeeper for the Scarlet Knights.
• Olin earned ECAC Defensive Player of the Week honors three times and Big East Defensive Player of the Week twice during his career.

Notable Nine
• Cornell's win over Yale on March 25 included a stretch of nine unanswered goals for the Big Red.
• It's the longest stretch of unanswered goals for Cornell since a 23-6 win at California on March 29, 2015 that included nine unaswered scores. 

Defensive Dominance
• Cornell is giving up just 7.43 goals per game, the fourth-best mark in the nation, and has held opponents to six-or-less goals in four of seven games so far this season.
• The team held then #10/13 Penn scoreless in the second half on March 4, marking the first time since 2011 that the Big Red held a team without a goal in a half. 
• The Big Red held Colgate scoreless for over 30 minutes of play in its 13-6 win on March 7 and shutout Yale for the final 25:25 of a 15-6 comeback win on March 25. 
• On March 19 against USC, the Big Red limited a Trojan offense that had been averaging 14.83 goals per game to 10 scores. 
• Cornell went the first four games of the season without allowing an opponent to score more than nine goals, something the program hadn't done since 2008.

Renee Says No
• Goalkeeper Renee Poullott made a season-high 10 saves in Cornell's 11-10 win over USC on March 19 and then repeated that save total in the very next outing, a 15-6 win at Yale on March 25.
• Poullott has now made at least 10 saves in a game on eight occasions in her career.
• The senior currently leads the nation with her 7.11 goals against average.
• Her .520 save percentage is good for eighth overall.

Assists by Amie
• After recording four assists in the first three games of the season, Amie Dickson registered 12 helpers in the next three.
• The senior had five assists in the Big Red's comeback win at Columbia on March 11, which tied a career-high, and added four more in Cornell's 11-10 upset of USC on March 19.
• She also had three assists in a 13-6 win over Colgate on March 7. 
• Dickson's 12 assists over three games are the most over  three games for a Cornell player since Emily Tripodi earned 15 assists over such a span in April 2013. 
• Dickson sits fifth overall in program history with 61 career assists and needs seven more to move into the top three.

Hot Streak
• Senior tri-captain Catherine Ellis has an 11 game goal streak dating back to the 2016 season.
• Ellis has scored 23 goals and assisted on seven others in those 11 games.
• The senior sits just one goal away from becoming the 15th player in program history to record 100 career goals. 

Balanced Offense
• In each of the first seven games of the season, Cornell has had at least six different goal scorers.
• Nine different players scored in the season-opening win over Villanova.
• The Big Red's comeback win over Yale included eight different goal scorers. 
• Against Columbia and Colgate, seven different players found the back of the net while eight and nine players, respectively, recorded at least one point.
• The Big Red got goals from six different players in games against Penn State, Penn, and USC.

Multi-Goal Games
• Seven different Big Red players have posted at least one multi-goal outing this season.
• Junior Taylor Reed has registered multiple goals in six of Cornell's seven games so far this season.
• Seniors Catherine Ellis and Kristy Gilbert, along with sophomore Sarah Phillips, each have five multi-goal efforts.
• Senior Amie Dickson has scored multiple goals on three occasions while sophomore Tomasina Leska and junior Joey Coffy have two and one, respectively. 

Road Warriors
• With its 15-6 win over Yale on March 25, the Big Red solidified the second-best road start in program history at 5-0.
• Cornell went undefeated in its first six road games of the 1987 season before dropping an overtime game at Princeton, 6-5.
• That year's squad went on to finish with a road record of 9-1 away from Ithaca – and claim the New York State Championship. 

Taking Down the Trojans
• Cornell's 11-10 win over the then-ranked #4/5 USC Trojans on Sunday marked the program's first over a team ranked in the top five of the polls since a 9-6 upset of #2 Florida in the final game of the 2011 season.
• The win helped Cornell jump up four spots in both national polls, as the Big Red moved from 11th to seventh with the win.
• Senior goalkeeper Renee Poullott made 10 saves – including six in the second half – to help secure the upset of a USC squad that entered the game averaging 14.83 goals per game. 

New York State of Mind
• Since 2010, Cornell is 26-10 against schools from the state of New York while the current senior class holds a record of 13-5.
• The Big Red has five New York teams on its schedule this season – Colgate, Columbia, Binghamton, UAlbany, and Syracuse – and so far is 2-0 in those contests.  

Tough Competition
• Cornell's schedule includes five games against teams that were in last season's NCAA Tournament in Penn State, USC, Syracuse, Penn and Princeton.
• All five of those schools are also currently ranked in both the IWLCA Coaches' Poll and the Inside Lacrosse Media Poll.
• Two 2017 opponents – Harvard and Rutgers – are receiving votes in the Inside Lacrosse Media Poll.

Milestone Watch
• Junior Joey Coffy needs just one more point and nine more goals to hit 50 overall in each category.
• Senior Amie Dickson needs three more goals to hit 75 for her career and is seven draw controls away from 125.
• Senior Catherine Ellis sits just one goal away from 100 for her career and is just four ground balls away from 50.
• Senior Kristy Gilbert needs five more points and six ground balls to hit 75 and 50, respectively, for her career in each category.
• Senior goalkeeper Renee Poullott needs just one more start to hit 50 for her career.
• Junior Taylor Reed is just four goals away from her 50th career tally. 

Ivy Honors
• Goalkeeper Renee Poullott was named the Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week on March 20.
• The senior made 10 saves and picked up two ground balls in Cornell's 11-10 win over then ranked #4/5 USC on March 19.
• Senior defender Catie Smith was named the Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week on March 6.
• The tri-captain had four caused turnovers, two ground balls and two draw controls in helping the Big Red defense hold Penn scoreless in the second half of Cornell's 10-4 win on March 4. 

Smith Named to Tewaaraton Watch List
• Senior tri-captain Catie Smith was named to the 2017 Tewaaraton Award women's watch list on Feb. 28.
• The Tewaaraton Award annually honors the top male and female college lacrosse player in the United States.
• The list includes the top players across all three NCAA divisions.
• Smith, a defender, leads the Big Red in ground balls (12) through two games and has caused seven turnovers.
• In 2016, she set the single-season program record with 41 caused turnovers.

Meet the Captains
• Seniors Catherine Ellis, Kristy Gilbert and Catie Smith will be serving as Cornell's captains for the 2017 season.
• Ellis was second on the team in scoring last year (22g, 12a), notched the memorable overtime-winner against Princeton in the Ivy League Tournament semifinal and was named to the Ivy League All-Tournament Team.
• Gilbert appeared in all 19 contests last year and started 18 of them while putting up 24 points (18g, 6a). 
• Smith, a 2016 First-Team All-Ivy selection and Third-Team IWLCA All-American, set a new single-season program record and led the Ivy League with 41 caused turnovers last season.

Up Next
• Cornell welcomes Binghamton to Schoellkopf Field on Tuesday, April 4 at 3 p.m.
• It's the first of three-straight home tilts for the Big Red, as Brown (April 8) and UAlbany (April 11) also have upcoming visits to East Hill.