Heading into its final six minutes against Penn State, men’s lacrosse held a four-goal lead.
No. 3 Cornell (4-1) had been shut down by the Nittany Lions for the past two years – a stinging 20-9 loss in 2024 ensured that the team would be marking its calendars for a rematch. On Saturday, the Red scored first in every quarter against No. 9/8 Penn State (5-1), remaining ahead of the Nittany Lions for all but two minutes of the game.
However, a late non-releasable penalty gave Penn State the opportunity to battle back and tie the score 12-12 at the end of regulation. Less than a minute into sudden-death overtime, the Nittany Lions stole the victory 13-12.
“In the end, we just didn’t make enough plays,” said head coach Connor Buczek ’15. “It obviously leaves a sour taste, but we’ll get better from this.”
In its last two games, Cornell has entered the second quarter in a deficit. Against Hobart, it was 3-5. At Richmond, it was 1-6. The Red wasn’t going to let Penn State get ahead that easily.
The scoring opened with senior midfielder Hugh Kelleher burying a jumping lefty shot one minute into the game.
Penn State answered by ripping its first two by senior goalkeeper Wyatt Knust. Senior attackman Micheal Long followed with two in a row, the latter from his old position behind the net, to put the Red up 3-2 at the end of the first quarter.
Senior attackman CJ Kirst opened his tab for the day with a crease dive, converting a pass from sophomore midfielder Willem Firth. Again coming from behind the cage, Long fed a pass to sophomore attackman Ryan Goldstein, who tapped it in from the doorstep.
One from Kirst and two from Penn State rounded out the half, and despite late-quarter efforts to even the score, the Nittany Lions trailed 6-4.
Junior faceoff and midfielder Jack Cascadden squared up for each of the first half’s 12 faceoffs, taking seven for a 58 percent win rate. Controlling Penn State’s Colby Baldwin, a fierce competitor for possession, was critical to giving the Red early chances.
“Colby Baldwin’s one heck of a player, and we have a lot of respect for him,” Buczek said. “Jack [Cascadden] had his moments. It was a battle.”
With unsettled play after a Cornell ground ball win to open the second half, senior midfielder Micheal Bozzi scored his second goal of the season. A bad pass on a Cornell man-up opportunity led to Penn State long pole Alex Ross ripping a side-winding shot to cut the Cornell lead to two.
The teams traded chances, keeping the Red constrained to a two-goal lead heading into the final period. The Red came out swinging, with Goldstein burying his second goal of the game on a rip to the top corner. Cascadden took the ensuing faceoff to the house, putting the Red up by four with under 10 minutes remaining.
Penn State got one back quickly, but Goldstein took advantage of the open net on the 10-man ride to complete his hat trick, the Red’s last point for the day.
A bad pass from Knust on a failed clear led to an easy Penn State goal. On the ensuing faceoff, Cascadden took the two-minute, non-releasable penalty which would catalyze the Red’s unraveling.
“We’ve got to play with more discipline,” Buczek said. “Those [non-releasable] penalties are killers late in the game.”
Up 12-9 with 2:20 left on the clock, Cornell sought to buckle down and defend its lead. Penn State quickly cut the distance to two and won the ensuing faceoff against Cornell’s backup, freshman faceoff Micheal Melkonian. The Nittany Lions scored again to put them one goal away from tying it up.
Baldwin won the next faceoff clean but dropped the ball, allowing it to be recovered by Melkonian. After bringing the ball into the box and securing possession with a timeout, Melkonian was swarmed by the Cornell bench in celebration.
However, Kirst proceeded to cough up the ball to the Penn State double team, and the Nittany Lions tied the game with 17 seconds remaining. Penn State won the next faceoff against Melkonian, though Cascaddan had been released, and held possession to start overtime with the ball.
Just 56 seconds into the extra period, Penn State’s Ethan Long buried the game-winning goal.
“When you have a man down, it’s a helpless feeling on the offense,” Goldstein said. “We have a lot of trust in the team, but Penn State definitely executed better down the stretch.”
The stinger marks Cornell’s first loss of the season. The Red’s senior leadership in Kirst, Long and Kelleher, supplemented with strong showings from Goldstein, Cascadden and Firth, wasn’t enough to shut down the Nittany Lions’ late-game rally.
Despite falling behind in the first half, Baldwin took 15 of 25 faceoffs, including nine in the fourth quarter alone. Cascadden went 8-18 and Melkonian went 3-9 for the Red.
“[Melkonian] made some great plays,” Buczek said. “He was tough off the ground, so [for the last faceoff before overtime], we went with the hot hand. It didn’t work out for us, but sometimes you’ve got to make snap decisions.”
Knust, who recently earned the Ivy League Goalkeeper of the Week distinction, struggled between the posts, especially when it came to defending high shots. He saved just 8 of the 21 shots on his cage, earning him a 38 percent save percentage.
Kirst, the team’s second Ivy League Player of the Week, saw his lowest productivity yet in front of the net. His two goals put him just three away from the school record set by Mike French ’76, who notched all 191 career goals in three years on the varsity team.
The Red has another challenge on the horizon, as it hosts No. 4 Princeton next weekend for its second consecutive top-10 matchup. The game will begin at noon on Saturday, March 15, and live coverage will be streamed on ESPN+.
