After a successful season culminating in an 11-4 overall record, men’s lacrosse earned the right to be one of the eight schools to host a first-round NCAA tournament game. The Red will face Johns Hopkins, who posted a 9-5 overall record.
No. 7 Cornell (11-4, 5-1 Ivy) comes limping into this contest after taking a beatdown from No. 2 Princeton (13-2, 5-1 Ivy) in the Ivy League championship game.
“They really executed at a high level, and we couldn't stop the bleeding at any facet of the game,” said head coach Connor Buczek ’15 MBA ’17. “We’ve got to make a simple play just to break the momentum, to get it going our way, and we just never really did that.”
And, speaking of frustrations for the Red, the head coach of Johns Hopkins (9-5, 3-2 B1G) is Peter Milliman. Milliman served as men’s lacrosse head coach for Cornell from 2018 to 2020 and left after under three seasons with the Red to take the same position with the Blue Jays.
His departure may have been a blessing in disguise for Cornell. Milliman’s departure meant that his young assistant coach, Buczek, was then promoted to head coach.
“It's just another Saturday for us,” Buczek said of going against his former boss. “It’s an opportunity to earn more time together.”
Shockingly, despite how historically good both programs are and the large number of staff and players shared between them over the years, this will be the first meeting between the two teams since 1987, in the NCAA men’s lacrosse championship. Johns Hopkins ultimately beat the Red 11-10 to secure the championship.
“That's the beauty of being at a program like Cornell and playing a program like Johns Hopkins,” Buczek said. “There's just a lot of really impressive history and we all stand on the shoulders of giants.”
One of the keys for the Red will be an advantage at the faceoff X. Johns Hopkins has a team faceoff win percentage of just 46%, and senior faceoff Jack Cascadden sits at 63%.
However, Johns Hopkins makes up for those lost possessions in other facets of the game. The Blue Jays will apply offensive and defensive pressure, and have sound fundamentals to get advantages at the margins.
“They're very well coached, and they execute in some of the small moments,” Buczek said. “Their substitution games are very strong, their ability to get their guys the ball where they want the ball.”
Also crucial for the Red is junior attackman Willem Firth. Firth has been the finisher for the offense unit all year, posting 51 goals and 80 total points through 15 games. Earlier this week, Firth was named one of five finalists for the Tewaaraton award, the MVP award for college lacrosse.
“[He’s] just a really simple superstar guy that shows up, doesn't say a whole lot, but works his tail off,” Buczek said. “He's a guy that does it all, and that's with the ball in the stick, without the ball, in the ride, on ground balls.”
The past week has been extremely busy for the Red, with a two-game week, final exams and now NCAA playoffs. It’s the time of year when the biggest games are played, but school and practice schedules are completely different.
“We have to be adaptive with our schedule and, realistically, it falls on our team,” Buczek said. “We talk about it a lot and the hope is that they're executing in the time they're not around us.”
Cornell and Johns Hopkins will face off at Schoellkopf Field at 5 p.m. on Saturday. Coverage will be available on ESPNU.
