2010 Men's Lacrosse Schedule
ITHACA, N.Y. – Jeff Tambroni, the Richard M. Moran Head Coach of Cornell Lacrosse, has announced the schedule for the upcoming 2010 season. The slate is an exciting one, featuring the appearance of four 2009 NCAA tournament participants, including two final four participants, the ever-competitive Ivy League conference, several games with traditional rivals and the implementation of an Ivy League Tournament.
“Our program is thrilled about the opportunity to play such a competitive schedule this spring,” said Tambroni. “The combination of our Ivy League schedule, our upstate rivals and the opportunity to host two of last year's Final Four participants on Schoellkopf Field will make for an extremely challenging, but exciting year.”
For the first time since the 2001 season, the contest with Hobart will not be the final regular season game, as the Big Red will kick off the 2010 season with the 132nd meeting with the Statesmen on Feb. 27. The Big Red holds an 80-47-4 advantage in the all-time series, which began in 1896. After the Big Red dropped five consecutive meetings with Hobart from 1996-2000, Tambroni, a Hobart graduate, took over the Big Red men's lacrosse program and has led Cornell to an 9-1 record against his alma mater. In his first season at the helm of the Statesmen's program, Coach T.W. Johnson led Hobart to a 7-7 record overall and 2-5 mark in the ECAC in 2009.
Cornell will travel to Buffalo for the first time in series history to take on Canisius on Tuesday, March 9, at the Demske Sports Complex. After advancing to their first-ever NCAA tournament in 2008, the Griffs struggled to a 4-9 overall record and a conference record of 3-5 in 2009. The Big Red is a perfect 6-0 in the series with Canisius.
Cornell opens the home portion of its schedule as it welcomes Army to Schoellkopf Field on Saturday, March 6. The Black Knights struggled in the 2009 season to finish with a 6-10 overall record and a mark of 2-4 mark in the Patriot League. Still, Army was extremely competitive in all its contests with seven of its 10 losses coming by two or fewer goals, including three in overtime.
Less than a week later, the Big Red will play host to Binghamton on Tuesday, March 9. The Bearcats, who finished the 2009 season with a 3-12 record, have not beaten the Big Red in six tries.
A rematch of the 2009 national semifinal will be played in Ithaca as Cornell welcomes Virginia to Schoellkopf Field for the first time since the 1974 NCAA tournament. The game, slated for March 13, will be the third meeting between the two squads since the start of last season. The Cavaliers finished the 2009 season with a 15-3 record and advanced to the national semifinals before falling to the Big Red, 15-6. After splitting the two games last season, Virginia improved to 5-3 in the all-time series.
The Ivy League portion of the schedule begins the following weekend as Yale travels to Ithaca on Saturday, March 20. The Bulldogs are looking to improve on their 5-8 record from a season ago in which they went 1-5 in the Ivy League. Yale returns four of its top five scorers for 2009, as well as both goalies that saw action a season ago. In the all-time series, Cornell has doubled up the Bulldogs, 44-22-1.
The Big Red travels to Stony Brook for a midweek matchup with the Seawolves on Tuesday, March 23 at 7 p.m. The game will be the first between the two squads since 2004, when Cornell improved to 3-0 in the all-time series with a 9-5 victory.
Cornell stays on the road for a pair of Ivy League contests as it faces Penn on March 27 and Dartmouth on April 3. The Big Red holds the lead in both all-time series with a record of 59-22-3 against the Quakers and 45-14 against the Big Green. First-year head coach Mike Murphy will look to have Penn improve on their 5-8 record (2-4 Ivy League) from a season ago, while Dartmouth went 4-11 overall and 1-4 in the conference last year.
Three straight home games close out the month of April, as the Big Red welcomes Harvard, in-state rival Syracuse and Brown.
Because of changes to the Ivy League schedule, the Crimson come to Ithaca for the second straight year on Saturday, April 10. After a slim, 13-12, victory over Harvard last season, Cornell improved to 59-23 in the all-time series. Still, the Crimson finished the 2009 season with an 8-5 record overall and a mark of 4-2 in the Ivy League.
The annual showdown with Syracuse returns to Ithaca this season as Cornell and the Orange face off on Tuesday, April 13. The game, which will be televised locally on Time Warner Sports, should prove to be another epic battle as Cornell will look to erase the memories of a heartbreaking 10-9 overtime loss to the Orange in the 2009 national championship game.
In its final home game of the regular season, Brown comes to Ithaca on Saturday, April 24. Last season, the Bears were the only blemish on the Big Red's Ivy League record, as they defeated Cornell, 11-9, to close the gap in the all-time series to 32-16. Brown, who lost to Johns Hopkins, 12-11, in overtime in the opening round of the NCAA tournament, finished the year with a 12-4 record overall and a mark of 4-2 in the conference.
The marquee matchup in Ivy League lacrosse, the Cornell and Princeton rivalry, travels to New Jersey on Saturday, May 1. The two squads have combined for 47 conference titles, sharing the crown in four of the past seven seasons. After Cornell had a four-game winning streak against the Tigers snapped during the 2008 season, the Big Red responded by defeating Princeton last year during the regular season, 10-6, at Schoellkopf Field, and again during the NCAA tournament with a 6-4 victory at Hofstra. With the two wins, Cornell closed the gap in the all-time series to 36-32-2. Princeton returns three All-Americans from last year's 13-3 (5-1 Ivy League) squad, but for the first time in 22 years will have a new head coach after Bill Tierney departed for Denver.
For the first time in the history of the Ivy League, the conference will sponsor a post-season tournament on the weekend of May 7-9. The tournament will include the top four teams in the Ivy League regular season round-robin competition and will be hosted by the round-robin winner.
