The men's lacrosse team's six-game winning streak came to an end Saturday at Memorial Field when the Big Green dropped a disappointing 17-12 contest to Cornell.
The loss could drop the Big Green, ranked 17th in last week's USILA poll, out of the top 20. The poll will be released this afternoon.
Dartmouth, now 6-1, was looking for its second Ivy League win against an unranked Cornell, but the Big Red offensively dominated the Big Green.
"It was a little disappointing," Coach Tim Nelson said. "They deserved to win though. They just played better than us."
Despite efforts to double team Cornell's leading scorer, Anthony Pavone '95, the quick attackman capitalized for five goals and two assists. Pavone now has added up 54 goals for the Big Red to give them a 5-4 record.
"One of the big keys was Anthony Pavone," Nelson said. "They made some good shots and saves allowing them to control the tempo of the game from an early start."
Dartmouth shot goal for goal with Cornell in the first quarter, but was outscored five to two in the second quarter, giving the Big Red an 8-5 halftime lead. Cornell tallied up another five goals in the third quarter and led 13-8 with the final 15 minutes to play.
"We told the guys to get one goal at a time," Nelson said. "We didn't give up, but it was frustrating. We would spend a lot of energy to close the gap, but then they would come back strong."
One minute into the fourth quarter, the Big Green capitalized on a goal inside, but, scoring seconds later, Cornell quickly countered. When Brian Merritt '97 drilled in Dartmouth's 10th goal, hope was still alive. Once again however, that hope was squashed with a Cornell goal one minute later.
Capitalizing on shot opportunities proved to be a problem for the Big Green. Cornell goalkeeper Michael LaRocco racked up 21 saves, frustrating the Dartmouth offense.
"I think we had a lot of missed opportunities," Nelson said. "There were a lot of times we had the ball and threw it away.There were just too many unforced errors on offense. We didn't take good care of the ball."
The Big Green will have two days to regroup before they travel to Yale Wednesday. The unranked Bulldogs will be ready to frustrate the Dartmouth offense with solid defensive play.
"They have a strong defense," Nelson said. "They are also a well-coached team and have some good offensivemen. We just need to get back doing the little things better. We need to clear the ball a little better and hang on to it on offense."
