ITHACA, N.Y. -- A New York State rivalry renews when Cornell women's lacrosse welcomes No. 3 Syracuse in game one of a Big Red-Orange doubleheader from Schoellkopf Field.

GAME INFO:
SITE: Schoellkopf Field - Ithaca, N.Y.
DATE and TIME: Tuesday, April 2 at 3 p.m.
RECORDS: Cornell (7-3, 2-1 Ivy League), Syracuse (9-3, 6-0 ACC)
SERIES RECORD: Syracuse leads, 20-5
BROADCAST: ESPN+
LIVE STATS: cornellbigred.com

MATCHUP HISTORY
- Tuesday's game will be the 26th all-time matchup between the Big Red and the Orange. 

- Syracuse had been a thorn in the side of the Big Red over the series, holding a 20-5 advantage and taking the last 15 games outright.  

- Cornell's offense has struggled to light the lamp, scoring ten or more goals in two of the last ten against its in-state rival. But the Big Red has kept the final score within six goals or less in seven of those contests, coming as close as a 9-7 defeat in Ithaca during the 2016 season.

- The Orange has not been afraid to let it fly towards the cage, ripping 30 or more shots in four of the last head-to-head battles. 

A WIN OVER SYRACUSE WOULD:
- Push Cornell to 8-3 overall for its best record through 11 games since being 9-2 in 2017.

- Give the Big Red its first win over Syracuse since a 9-4 decision in 2006 and snap a seven-game home losing streak to the Orange.

- Hand Jenny Graap her 256th career win and 235th as head coach of the Big Red.

- Be the 377th win in program history (376-328-4 in 52 seasons, .534). 

TEAM MOLLY INITIATIVE
Tuesday's game will also be the first-ever Team Molly game, as Cornell will be collecting donations to be donated to Upstate Medical in Syracuse to help fund rare cancer treatment. The organization was founded in 2013 in honor of Molly Seifritz, a former standout lacrosse player at DIII Buffalo State College, who lost her battle with Ewing Sarcoma, a rare type of bone cancer. Cornell assistant coach Ashley O'Brien was a teammate of Seifritz's on the women's lacrosse team for four seasons. The Big Red will be wearing special warm-up shirts, and both teams will also be wearing yellow ribbons. 

LAST TIME OUT: VOGEL SCORES FIVE, BIG RED CRUISES AGAINST JACKSONVILLE
Junior attacker Josie Vogel paced the Big Red with a first-half hat trick and eventually finished with a career-high five goals as Cornell defeated the Jacksonville Dolphins, 13-7, on Saturday from Tiger Field in Maryland. Cornell's result over the Dolphins was the first neutral site victory since an 11-10 win over UMass in 2018. 

Three other athletes had multi-point outings for the red and white in Kylie Gelabert (two goals, one assist) and Ella Wilmot (two goals), and Sophie Ward (one goal, one assist) in a game that saw seven different Big Red players find the back of the net. Senior attacker Hilary Hoover also scored her first career goal in the third quarter, joining five other players who have scored their first goal in a Cornell uniform this season. 

Cornell's offense hit the ground running early, outshooting the Dolphins by an 8-3 clip and jumping out to a 4-1 lead after the opening fifteen minutes on two goals from Vogel and one each from Wilmot and Caitlin Slaminko. The Dolphins would cut the lead to two to open the second before Vogel's third of the half sparked a 3-0 run over less than two minutes to give Cornell a 7-2 cushion at the half. 

Both teams traded goals to open the third, as Jacksonville hoped for a spark to inch its way back into view. Cornell had no thought of that, ripping off a woman-up goal from Ward to match the previous Dolphins goal. Hoover answered Ward's goal nearly three minutes later, scooping up a ground ball and running into the Dolphin defensive zone before firing home her first career goal and getting mobbed by her teammates to put Cornell at ten goals on the afternoon. The Big Red built its lead back up to eight to begin the fourth with goals from Dylan Madigan and Vogel before Jacksonville tried to make one final push with a 3-0 run late in the fourth. But the rally fell short, as Gelabert's second of the day was the icing for a Big Red victory. 

INSIDER: SYRACUSE
- The Orange come into Tuesday on a hot streak, rattling off six straight victories to sit 9-3 overall and 6-0 in ACC action. Syracuse is also the No. 3 ranked team in the latest Intercollegiate Women's Lacrosse Coaches Association poll after sitting in the No. 5 spot last week. 

- Syracuse went back and forth in the first half with Louisville before an 8-0 scoring run that ran over ten minutes over the third and fourth quarters gave the Orange a 22-12 victory on Saturday afternoon from the JMA Wireless Dome.

- Eight players scored for the Orange in the win, led by nine goals combined from Emma Tyrrell and Olivia Adamson. Graduate Student Kate Mashewske also became Syracuse's all-time leader in draw controls with 16 on the afternoon, four more than Louisville had as a team. Syracuse led the way in shots (38-25) and shots on goal (27-20) to secure its 12th win in the last 13 tries against its conference foe. 

- Tyrrell is a player to watch, as the graduate student leads the Orange with 36 goals this season and has a .719 shots-on-goal percentage. She is half of Syracuse's star-studded attack alongside Olivia Adamson. The junior from Florida has a team-high 51 points (33 goals, 18 assists). The two also combined for six goals in Syracuse's 19-13 win over the Big Red in the dome last season. Senior Emma Ward closes out the top players on the offensive end with 24 goals and a team-high 25 assists this season. 

- Syracuse has been one of the most potent offenses, ranking in the top ten in DI lacrosse in shot percentage (.495) and goals per contest (16.00). The Orange are also not afraid to pass the ball around, dishing out 7.58 assists per game, which is top-15 in the country. 

- Caused turnovers have been a habit for the Orange on both ends of the field (10.75 per game). That metric is eighth in the country and the best in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Syracuse has also excelled in the draw circle with the third-best unit in the ACC (16.42/game). Katelyn Mashewske has spearheaded the unit with a conference-best 8.08/game. 

- Goalkeeping has been a small bump in the road for the Orange with the seventh-best saves percentage (.387) and second-worst saves per game (6.83) in the ACC. 

- Former Orange attacker/midfielder Kayla Treanor is in her third season as head coach at her alma mater. Treanor has put together a 42-12 record over those three years, including two consecutive berths to the NCAA DI Women's Lacrosse Tournament, making the national semifinals in 2023. 

- Treanor has an interesting connection to current Cornell assistant Hollie Schleicher, as the Niskayuna, N.Y. native helped lead Boston College to the NCAA DI Women's Lacrosse Championship as an assistant when Schleicher was a sophomore for the Eagles in 2021.

UP NEX
The Big Red begins its crucial four-game Ivy League stretch with a visit to Cambridge to battle Harvard on Saturday, April 6. The first draw is set for noon from Jordan Field and will be available to stream on ESPN Plus.