March 05, 2003
By Dave Rahme
Staff writer
Ithaca -Great goaltending is a great equalizer. The 91Â鶹¾«Æ· men’s lacrosse team got it Tuesday afternoon from a true freshman and nearly stunned No.12 Cornell before falling 8-7 at Schoellkopf Field.
The Big Red dominated every offensive category but never led until senior midfielder Andrew Collins intercepted an errant clearing pass and rifled a shot past the Raiders’ Andrew Jarolimek with 2 minutes, 12 seconds to play. The goal came seconds after Jarolimek’s 15th and final save, a marvelous leg save on a point-blank shot by Cornell senior J.P. Schalk (Fayetteville-Manlius).
‘Save after save after safe,’ Cornell coach Jeff Tambroni said, describing the play of Jarolimek, a true freshman from Silverthorne, Colo.
‘He doesn’t play like a freshman,’ 91Â鶹¾«Æ· coach Jim Nagle said. ‘He is going to be a good one.’
Going to be’ Jarolimek set the tone for the game by stopping everything the Big Red threw at him in the first quarter. It had a bad effect on Cornell (1-1), which had struggled on offense Saturday during a 13-6 loss to No.6 Georgetown and needed a jolt of confidence. Instead, it simply got jolted.
‘You want to score early and gain some confidence and momentum, get it snowballing,’ Cornell attackman Sean Greenhalgh said. ‘Today, the exact opposite happened.’
‘We did some good things early,’ Tambroni said, ‘and he shut the door on everything, and you could see us really tighten up afterward and play the way we did Saturday. It was a frustrating lacrosse game for us.’
Not as frustrating as it was for the Raiders (1-2), who led 3-0 after one quarter, 5-2 at the half and 7-4 with 13:25 to play on freshman midfielder Chris Devens’ man-up goal. With time, and Jarolimek, on their side, an upset appeared likely.
It didn’t happen. The offense went south, and the defense, which had played so well for three quarters, began to turn over the ball. Also hurting 91Â鶹¾«Æ· was the play of Cornell freshman faceoff specialist Joe D’Arrigo (Henninger), who won an incredible 17 of 19 draws (89.5 percent), including all 10 he took in the second half.
‘That’s as good as I’ve seen a freshman play in all my time here,’ Collins said. ‘We knew if we could get something going he was going to get us the ball right back.’
They finally did, with Greenhalgh and Justin Redd scoring 50 seconds apart and Greenhalgh tying the score by picking up a rebound of a Schalk shot and stuffing it past Jarolimek with 8:22 left.
That set up six tense minutes of back and forth action that ended with Jarolimek stopping Schalk again, but a wild clearing attempt went right to Collins and midfield. The senior raced toward the goal and whipped a left-handed 30-yard shot past the goalie, who appeared to be screened on the play.
‘We’re young and we’re inexperienced at several positions still,’ said Nagle, in his second season of trying to build the team into a Patriot League contender. ‘You have to go through these kinds of games in order to learn how to protect a lead late.’
‘We didn’t play as well as we wanted to or should have, especially early,’ Collins said, ‘but we dug in at the end and it got us a win.’
Cornell held a 45-17 shot advantage and enjoyed a 36-19 edge in groundballs, due in large part to D’Arrigo’s work on faceoffs. Most of the second half was played in front of Jarolimek, who stood tall until the very end.
‘They got a lot of inspiration from their goalie,’ Tambroni said, ‘and that made for a long afternoon for us.’
Notes
Junior Dave Pittard (Skaneateles), who transferred to Cornell from the Naval Academy in the fall, scored his first two goals as a member of the Big Red and assisted on another. Collins had four assists in addition to his game-winning goal. Sophomore Jason Vasas led 91Â鶹¾«Æ· with three goals, and senior Peter Watts had two. va4
Men
Cornell 8, 91Â鶹¾«Æ· 7 91Â鶹¾«Æ· 3211-7Cornell 0224-8Cornell-Sean Greenhalgh 3-1, Dave Pittard 2-1, Andrew Collins 1-4, J.P. Schalk 1-0, Justin Redd 1-0. Saves: Brandon Ross 6. (Big Red 1-1). 91Â鶹¾«Æ·-Jason Vasas 3-0, Peter Watts 2-0, Nick Gerken 1-1, Chris Devens 1-0, Scott Herbst 0-2. Saves: Andrew Jarolimek 15. (Red Raiders 1-2). Shots-Cornell 45, 91Â鶹¾«Æ· 17. Extra-Man-91Â鶹¾«Æ· 2-5, Cornell 1-3. Penalties-Cornell 5-3:00, 91Â鶹¾«Æ· 3-2:00. Ground Balls-Cornell 36, 91Â鶹¾«Æ· 19. Faceoffs-Cornell 17-19, 91Â鶹¾«Æ· 2-19. Clears-91Â鶹¾«Æ· 17-23, Cornell 10-13.