Michigan Comes to Town as MLAX Hosts First Round NCAA Game
STREAKS, STORYLINES & SIDEBARS
• Cornell stays home to host it’s second consecutive First Round NCAA Tournament game. The road to Philly begins against the Big Ten Champion Michigan Wolverines on Sunday, May 14, at 2:30 p.m. on Schoellkopf Field. The winner of the first round will advance to the quarterfinals, scheduled for Saturday, May 20th, facing the winner of the Duke vs. Delaware/Marist.
• Michigan enters the contest ranked eighth in the Inside Lacrosse poll. The Wolverines boast wins over common opponents Harvard (19-13), Penn State (15-15 in the B1G Tournament), and Ohio State (19-14 regular season, 14-10 B1G Tournament).
• Cornell sits at ninth in Inside Lacrosse Media Poll this week, dropping from last week’s ranking of sixth.
• Cornell ranks sixth nationally in scoring offense, allowing 14.86 goals per game. The Big Red also ranks sixth in groundballs per game, averaging 37.21, and 14th nationally in caused turnovers per game (9.50). Cornell has the nation’s ninth-best scoring margin, outscoring opponents by an average of 3.86 goals per game.
• Michigan averages the third-best shot percentage at .342. The Wolverines boast one of the most effective faceoff units in the country, winning 61 percent of the battles at the X. Justin Wiefeldt enters the weekend as the nation’s best faceoff specialist, winning 66 percent of his pulls. Attackman Michael Boehm ranks sixth nationally in shot percentage, scoring on 48.8 percent of his shots taken.
• Cornell returns the Ivy League Rookie of the Year in CJ Kirst, who notched 55 goals and 79 points for the Big Red last year. He leads the nation in goals per game (4.46), even after being shut out at Army, in addition to ranking first in points per game (5.85). Kirst was named the Ivy League Player on the Week twice this season (March 5, May 1). He earned a nod on the USILA National Team of the Week following his seven-goal outing versus #16 Penn. He earned a second and third USILA TOTW recognition in back-to-back weeks following a dominat offensive performance at Brown (6g, 3a) and a complete performance against #17/#20 Princeton for the Ivy regular season title (3g, 3a, 5gb, 3cto). He is the third Ivy League player to ever win Rookie of the Year and Player of the Year in consecutive seasons. Cornell alum Rob Pannell was the most recent to do so.
• Kirst has rewritten the Cornell single-season record books for a second straight year, specifically in the single-season goals category. He has 63 goals in 14 games this season, and already is tied for third all-time. His 55 goals in 19 games last season ranks seventh in the Big Red record books.
• Gavin Adler is a four-time National Team of the Week honoree, most recently following the Cornell win over Yale where he tallied eight groundballs and a caused turnover. He aided in holding one of the nation’s leading attackman, Matt Brandau, to just one goal, nearly ending a 129-game goal-streak, the longest in the country at the time.
• Jack Cascadden has become a staple in the Big Red faceoff unit. He ranks fifth in the Ivy in faceoff winning percentage (.521). He was named Ivy League Rookie of the Week following his performance against Penn, where he assisted on a goal just 10 seconds into the game, and went 12-for-16 at the faceoff.
• The Big Red boasts three mid-season All-Americans, Gavin Adler (First-team), Chayse Ierlan (Third-team), and CJ Kirst (First-team).
