CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – With the Big Red men's lacrosse team clinging to a one-goal lead at the start of the fourth quarter, the team's heralded freshmen class stepped up to lift Cornell to a 12-9 victory over Harvard this afternoon in Cambridge. The win is the second in a row for the Big Red, as it improves to 3-6 overall and evens its Ivy record at 2-2, while snapping a three-game winning streak by the Crimson in the series.
 
Freshman Paul Rasimowicz led the charge, winning 7-of-8 of his face-offs in the final stanza, including a stretch of six in a row in which Harvard was essentially held out of its offensive end for over 10 minutes. The one time that the Crimson managed to clear the ball during that stretch, Joe Lang's pass was immediately picked off on and incredible play by freshman defender Brandon Salvatore.
 
The caused turnover led to the first of back-to-back goals from freshman Jeff Teat before classmate Connor Fletcher scored an unassisted goal and then fed Kason Tarbell to make it a 12-7 game with just 4:21 to play.
 
Once again, Rasimowicz won the face-off and the Big Red killed nearly three minutes off the clock before a bevy of penalties were called on both teams after a late Crimson hit on Clarke Petterson drew the ire of the Big Red bench. As a result, Harvard's Carney Mahon scored on a 5-on-4 man-up opportunity to end Cornell's run at four unanswered goals. The Crimson then tacked on a goal with 42 seconds to play to account for the 12-9 final.
 
Teat finished with three goals and two assists to lead all scorers with five points, followed closely by Fletcher's two-goal, two-assist performance.  Petterson chipped in three points (one goal, two assists), and Colton Rupp (one goal, one assist) was the only other multi-point scorer for the Big Red.
 
Cornell assisted on 8-of-12 goals.
 
Defensively, Cornell caused 11 of Harvard's 17 turnovers, with Marshall Peters finishing the day with four to move into fifth place in Big Red history in caused turnovers for a career (53). He also picked up a game-high five ground balls. Walt Gahagan and Salvatore finished with three and two caused turnovers, respectively, and each picked up four ground balls.
 
Behind the defense, Christian Knight was solid in goal with seven saves.
 
In addition to its outstanding defensive effort, a pair of short-sticks – Tarbell and Fleet Wallace – found the back of the net in transition, including Wallace's first career point.
 
In the circle, Rasimowicz won 14-of-22 face offs (.636) and picked up four ground balls.
 
Harvard (5-5, 1-2 Ivy) was led by Lang, the younger brother of Cornell All-American Roy Lang, and Ryan Graff with three goals each, while Morgan Cheek handed out three assists.
 
Goalie Roberts Shaw stopped six shots in the loss.
 
Cornell held the edge in shots (34-31), ground balls (32-27) and face-offs (14-of-25). And once again, the Big Red's 10-man ride was effective, allowing Harvard to clear the ball successfully just 10-of-16 times.
 
The Big Red is back in action on Tuesday, April 11 when it takes on No. 2 Syracuse in the Carrier Dome at 7 p.m.