Cole Scores 100th Career Goal In Loss to No.5/8 Cornell

Saturday, February 17

Ithaca, N.Y.

3:30 PM

Lehigh University

1-2

No. 5/8 Cornell University

1-0

LEHIGH

CORNELL

Cole Scores 100th Career Goal In Loss to No.5/8 Cornell

2/17/2024 8:00:00 PM | Men's Lacrosse

Box Score

ITHACA, N.Y. - Senior attackman Scott Cole notched his 100th career goal and tied his career-high of seven points, but it would not be enough for Lehigh men's lacrosse as the Mountain Hawks fell 17-13 to No.5/8 Cornell Saturday afternoon at Schoellkopf Field.

"Scott is a tremendous talent and any career mark or accolade he receives is more than deserved," said head coach Will Scudder. "I know he would trade every goal he has for team success though. I look forward to correcting our mistakes and moving on to Dartmouth.

Lehigh dropped to 1-2 on the season, while Cornell improved to 1-0. Cole's seven points (6G, 1A) led the way while Dakota Eierman (2G), Grant Rodny (2G), Andrew Kelly (1G, 1A), Tyler Lahey (1G) and EJ Vasile (1G) also got on the board.

Cole notched his sixth and final goal of the day with 4:39 left in the game to make it a four-goal game, and Cornell answered right back with a goal not even a minute later. That would be the story on Saturday, as every time the Mountain Hawks made a run, the Big Red made one, too.

The Big Red struck first as Michael Long connected on one of his four goals just 46 seconds into the game. Long led the way for Cornell with seven points (4A, 3G). Grant Rodny evened things at one five minutes into the game, but Cornell scored the next three goals of the game before Cole found the back of the net for the with 1:02 remaining in the first frame.

After Cole's goal, Cornell scored four unanswered goals to go up 8-2 with 11:08 left in the second quarter. Three of Cornell's four goals were scored in a 30 second span.

CJ Kirst put Cornell back up by six with 4:34 remaining in the first half, but Eierman gave Lehigh some life as he found the back of the net with 50 seconds remaining to cut Cornell's lead to 10-5 heading into halftime.

The Mountain Hawks came out of halftime soaring, scoring four straight goals to cut their deficit to just one, but Cornell answered right back with four goals to go back up 14-9 with 10:47 remaining. Despite a valiant effort, Lehigh was not able to come back.

"Cornell is a good team that plays very hard," Scudder said. "I thought our guys matched their effort but we failed to execute in the middle of the field. We never gave up and got back into the fight, but the hole we dug ourselves proved to be too deep. I thought we played well at times in each facet of the game (offense, defense, clearing, face off, riding), but they were never in conjunction with each other. "

Although the Big Red won the faceoff battle, going 23-of-34 from the stripe, Lehigh was still able to generate 44 shots to Cornell's 45.

Senior goalkeeper Nick Pecora finished with 11 saves in net, while Cornell's Wyatt Knust tallied 14 saves.

The Big Red had 18 turnovers compared to Lehigh's 14. For the second straight game, Richard Checo tallied a game-high of three caused turnovers while also picking up four ground balls. Kelly, Timmy Kirlin, Luke McAuliffe and Nick Turrini all tallied a caused turnover.

The Mountain Hawks will return to action on Feb. 26 when they play Dartmouth at Trinity College in Connecticut. Opening faceoff is slated for 7 p.m.