CHARLOTTE, N.C. – In a tale of two halves that had a wild ending, it was freshman face-off specialist Angelo Petrakis who was the hero for the Big Red, netting the game-winning goal with eight seconds left to give the #7 Cornell men's lacrosse team an 18-17 victory over #2 Penn State on Sunday afternoon at the Crown Lacrosse Classic in Charlotte, N.C.
With less than a minute remaining in the game, Cornell found itself trailing by one goal, 17-16. In a second half in which almost all of the momentum belonged to Penn State, the Big Red needed to find a way to net the equalizer, and time was running out. With the game on the line, Cornell turned to none other than Jeff Teat, the Big Red's standout and team leader. With 18 seconds on the clock, Teat went one-on-one with his defender and won the battle, scoring the equalizer to tie the game up, 17-17.
The ensuing face-off created a wild ending. Petrakis headed to the face-off circle, and after fighting hard with Penn State's Jake Glatz, both teams found themselves in a frantic scramble to gain possession of the ball on Penn State's half of the field. Dom Doria came up with it in what was arguably the biggest ground ball of the game and found an open Petrakis. Petrakis took off running down the field in what was a one-man race, and drilled a shot home, netting the game-winning goal with eight seconds left in the game to give Cornell the victory.
Petrakis came up big when Cornell needed him to the most, but his work in the face-off circle over the course of the game was just as valuable, putting the Big Red in a position to win the game in the first place. The freshman finished the contest 18-of-29 from the X, including going 7-of-10 in an opening quarter of play in which Cornell exerted complete dominance.
After Penn State scored the first two goals of the contest to take a 2-0 lead, a fuse went off for the Big Red, who poured in eight unanswered goals from the 8:31 mark in the first to the end of the quarter to take an 8-2 lead through 15 minutes of play. Perhaps what was most impressive about this run was the fact that seven different players scored for the Big Red. John Piatelli scored a pair of goals, while Jonathan Donville, Matt Licciardi, Connor Fletcher, Cooper Telesco, Billy Coyle, and Brandon Salvatore all got in on the action as well. Licciardi's and Salvatore's goals marked their first of the season.
The second quarter opened with two more goals for Cornell, as Michael Long and JJ Lombardi both scored to extend the Big Red's scoring streak to 10 and give Cornell a 10-2 lead. Lombardi's shot was an absolute rocket, literally going through the net.
Penn State finally ended its 15:53 scoring drought at the 9:07 mark in the second quarter, as a TJ Malone goal made the score 10-3. But Teat quickly put an end to Penn State's celebration, scoring two-straight goals to re-extend the Cornell lead to 12-3. Penn State would tack on two more goals before the end of the half, and the Big Red would head into the break with a seven goal advantage, 12-5.
For as hot as Cornell was in the first 30 minutes, it was almost as if both teams decided to trade places at halftime, because the Nittany Lions mirrored Cornell's performance coming out of the half. After Donville scored the first goal of the second half to give Cornell a 13-5 lead, Penn State tallied seven unanswered goals to close out the third quarter. With it now a one-goal contest, 13-12, heading into the last 15 minutes of play, it was a whole new ball game.
Penn State kept rolling to open the fourth quarter, tying things up, 13-13, on a Dylan Foulds goal. This is when Billy Coyle decided to take matters into his own hands, scoring a pair of goals to notch his first career hat trick and give Cornell a 15-13 advantage with 7:52 left in the game. Coyle's first goal ended a 19:16 scoring drought for the Big Red spanning the third and fourth quarters.
Penn State would score a goal to cut the Big Red lead to one, but Petrakis preserved Cornell's breathing room for the time-being, winning the ensuing faceoff and taking it straight to the cage to put the Big Red on top by two, 16-14, with 7:10 remaining. Penn State had other ideas, however, scoring three unanswered goals in a 0:58 second span to give the Nittany Lions a 17-16 lead with 3:46 left in the game. It was a second half that was all about Penn State, until it wasn't, and Teat's and Petrakis' late-game heroics helped the Big Red stun the Nittany Lions in dramatic fashion.
Coyle and Teat each netted three goals for the Big Red in the victory, while Long dished out a career-high four assists. Teat and Long also led the team in points, tallying six and five, respectively. In total, 11 different Big Red players scored at least one goal in the win.
With the victory, Cornell knocked off its second-straight ranked opponent and improved to 5-0 on the season for the first time since 2014 when the team won its first nine games.
The No. 7 Cornell men's lacrosse team will look to preserve its unbeaten record when it opens Ivy League play and welcomes No. 5 Yale to town for its first home game of the 2020 campaign on Saturday, March 14. Face-off is set for a 1 p.m. start at Schoellkopf Field in Ithaca, N.Y.
