Men's Lacrosse Falls 16-3 Against Cornell

The Harvard men's lacrosse team's two-game win streak was halted this Saturday with a 16-3 loss on the road against Cornell.

The Crimson (5-2, 0-2 Ivy) had won each of its last two games by one goal, but Saturday's contest was a blowout from the beginning. Cornell (5-2, 3-0 Ivy) scored the first eight goals of the game and would not relinquish the momentum on the way to a 13-goal victory.

Senior captain David Key got the Big Red on the board early, tallying one of his career-high seven goals at the :56 mark of the first quarter.

Cornell opened up a 4-0 lead after the first frame and took a 10-1 lead into the half.

The only Harvard goal of the first half came at the 7:38 mark of the second quarter. Co-captain Dana Sprong, coming off a six-goal effort against Hartford on Tuesday, beat Big Red goaltender Justin Cynar for his sixteenth goal of the season.

The third period did not start out much better for the Crimson, as Big Red sophomore Frank Stands scored at the :22 mark, and Key followed up with two more goals in the span of one minute.

"Cornell moved the ball very well and caused us to slide early, which left people open in the crease," said freshman goaltender Jake McKenna.

Harvard would end the third period with no shots, and Cornell took a 14-1 lead into the final frame.

Senior attackman Roger Buttles scored twice in the fourth period for the Crimson.

His first goal came at the :54 mark with an assist from Derek Nowak. Buttles would tally his second goal of the game, and twelfth of the season, in the closing minutes of the defeat.

But the goals were far too few and far too late for the Crimson.

"They just played well and we played badly," said Sprong.

McKenna, coming off a strong performance against Duke which earned him Ivy League Rookie of the Week Honors for the second week in a row, was replaced by senior Ely Kahn in the fourth period.

McKenna left with 10 saves and allowed 15 Big Red goals. Cornell outshot Harvard 44-35 for the game.

"They were very confident and all their passes were on the mark," said McKenna.

The loss drops the Crimson into the cellar of the Ivy League. Meanwhile, Cornell improves to 3-0 with the win and is in a first place tie with Princeton.

"We ran into a team that was on a very hot streak, but we're not going to dwell on this loss, we'll bounce back strong," Buttles said.

Harvard will have a chance to improve its Ivy record next week when it hosts Brown on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Jordan Field. The Crimson then travels to New Jersey to play Princeton at 3 p.m. on Saturday.