ITHACA, N.Y. – Cornell senior
Clarke Petterson collected a precision pass from
Jeff Teat in stride and beat Princeton goalie Erik Peters over his right shoulder to hand the Big Red a 14-13 victory over the Tigers this afternoon on Schoellkopf Field. The goal, Petterson's fourth of the afternoon, came with just four seconds to play, and capped what had been a wild second half of play. With the win, Cornell improved to 10-4 overall and 4-2 in the conference, securing the No. 3 seed in the upcoming Ivy League Tournament. The Tigers saw their season come to an end, falling to 7-7 overall and 2-4 in the Ivy play.
With Cornell trailing by two goals at the start of the fourth quarter (11-9), it seemed only fitting that Petterson took over for the Big Red on Senior Day, scoring three times, including the game-winner, and adding one assist in the final 15 minutes of the contest. Petterson ended the game with seven points on four goals and three assists to move into eighth place in Cornell history for career points, while matching a career-high with 44 goals on the season.
John Piatelli tallied six goals for Cornell on four goals and two assists, while
Jeff Teat and
Jonathan Donville both chipped in one goal and two assists. The Big Red's second midfield line of
Cooper Telesco (two goals),
Matt Licciardi (two assists) and
Zach Ward (one goal, one assist) all finished with two points apiece.
Cornell assisted on 12-of-14 goals.
In goal, freshman
Chayse Ierlan registered 12 saves, including a stop on Charlie Durbin's last second shot as time expired to preserve the victory. In front of Ierlan, the Big Red registered eight caused turnovers on 15 Princeton miscues.
Brandon Salvatore had two caused turnovers to move into a tie with current Big Red assistant coach
Jordan Stevenson with 63 for his career. Salvatore also picked up five ground balls, while
Fleet Wallace and
Sam Duggan nabbed four apiece.
The Big Red had a strong performance in the face-off circle with
Paul Rasimowicz winning 19-of-29 and picking up a career-high 14 ground balls. With his performance, Rasimowicz moved into fifth place in Cornell history with 353 career wins.
Michael Sowers continued his assault on the Princeton record book with a game-high eight points on seven goals and one assist. He scored five of the Tigers seven second half goals as the visitors attempted to pull off the upset. Six different Princeton players registered the Tigers' other six goals and only Chris Brown (one goal, one assist) joined Sowers with a multi-point game.
In goal, Peters finished with 15 saves.
Cornell held the advantage in shots (56-39), shots on goal (29-25), and ground balls (46-28), while turning the ball over one fewer time (15-14). The Big Red was a perfect 18-of-18 on clears while holding the Tigers to an 18-22 performance. Princeton was also 0-for-2 on extra-man opportunities, while Cornell converted 2-of-6 chances.
The Big Red started the game strong and seemed to be in control for the majority of the first half, but struggled to pull away as Peters stopped nine shots in the first 30 minutes of the contest. Cornell took the largest lead of the day for either team with Piatelli scored a man-up goal off a pass from Petterson to make it a 5-2 contest at the 11:41 mark of the second quarter. A goal from Sowers stole some of the momentum back, and Princeton closed the half on a 4-1 run, including a pair of goals in the final 48 seconds, to knot that contest at 6-6 at the break.
Cornell scored back-to-back goals from Teat and Petterson to regain an 8-6 advantage early in the third, but another run from the visitors saw the Big Red trailing 11-9 at the final break.
Petterson opened the scoring in the fourth quarter with a 10-yard bomb, off a feed from Teat, to pull Cornell within one goal (11-10). Sowers answered for the Tigers, but a quick restart from Donville led to a goal by
Jake McCulloch to make it a one goal game once again.
Piatelli and Petterson accounted for the Big Red's next two goals, with each scoring and assisting on each other's tallies, to restore the 13-12 lead to Cornell with 1:41 to play.
Rasimowicz won the restart, but a collision with the official jarred the ball loose and Sowers scored in transition to tie the game one final time at 13-13 with 1:26 showing on the clock.
This time, Princeton won the en suing face-off, but Salvatore forced a turnover and Wallace picked up the ground ball to give Cornell the game-winning possession.
Cornell will be back in action when it faces the No. 2 seed Yale in the Ivy League Tournament semifinal at 8:30 p.m. on Friday, May 3 at Columbia's Wien Stadium in New York City. The game will be broadcast on ESPNU.
