Saturday's NCAA Division One Lacrosse Championship--a 16-13 overtime win for upstart Cornell over Maryland--proved a few things:
1) Whenever there are two, undefeated, talent-laden cocky squads on any lined field with orange goals you can count on a heart-stopping classic;
2) Never count your chickens, even when they're hatched;
3) The Northland's Greatest Attack (Cornell's Mike French, Eamon McEneaney and Jonathan Levine) is slicker than College Park's Burliest Midfielder (Maryland's Frank Urso);
4) Without a doubt, French, a Canadian import, is the Once and Future King of flashy offensive players;
5) And finally, as a made-for-television banner proclaimed, the Big Red Ivy did indeed poison the "Twerps," ah, Terps of Maryland.
A crowd of over 11,000 tee-shirted lacrosse aficionados and an ABC Wide World of Sport's team (the announcers in ugly yellow blazers) were waiting just before 2 p.m. Saturday to answer the question of why anyone with their wits about them would be in Providence, R.I. over a sunny spring weekend. The answer came from the two teams, though at first it looked like Bud Beardmore's Terrapins were going to take the plaques and trophies back to the Chesapeake for a second straight year. By halftime, it was 7-2 Maryland and Cornell had to have wished they had stayed High Above Cayuga's Waters. But in the third quarter, the Big Red notched six goals to the Southerners' two and got right back in the ballgame.
As to counting chickens even when you're sure they're hatched, Cornell's vociferous rooting section received that lesson in the fourth quarter by a jarring dose of Planetary Realism. After French & Company had roared back to take the lead 12-11 with :06 on the clock, a long line of Ithaca's finest waited along the edge of the field, chanting "We're Number One."
Five long seconds later, after Frank Urso had whipped to ball to midfielder Greg Rump for the tying goal, the chant had faded. A chastened Cornell crowd retreated to the track in front of the stands, embarrassed by their premature and fortunately penultimate celebration, and waited two more overtime periods before pouring onto the field for the last time.
Urso, a stocky consensus All-American for what seems the last century, spent the afternoon trying to defy the laws of physics by threading his swarthy body through hordes of defenders. He was no match for Cornell's lax trio. And eventually, the laws of Mother Nature caught up to him in the form of an immoveable object. In the waning seconds, three riders converged on Urso, who was trying to advance the ball upfield, and put him flat on his face, a la Richard Dunn. Urso never saw McEneaney feed French for the Big Red's final tally.
French finished with seven tallies, tying a tournament record, added four assists and did everything but walk on water. While Maryland's All-American defenseman Mike Farrell was occupied with the galloping McEneaney--who is one part leprechaun, one part thug and one part colt--French befuddled the rest of the Terrapins. His first goal combined strength, speed and finesse. French drove into his defender, spun away to the outside and played "Now you see it, now you don't" with goalie Jake Reed. The Canadian was just as smooth in his passing; Cornell got its tying goal in regulation with a French behind the back over the shoulder assist to midfielder Bill Marino. The third member of the attack, Jonathan Levine, (who must know how drummer Peter Best, Rep. William Miller and patriot William Dawes feel) showed he isn't about to play in anyone's shadow by scoring four times including a crucial insurance goal in the second overtime period.
As a championship game, it certainly had to rank with the now almost mythic clashes between arch-rivals Maryland and John Hopkins. In recent years, however, Hopkins has more often than not folded against Maryland--a fate Cornell resisted. In the overtime Saturday, Maryland's Terry Kimball scored in the first 34 seconds, but instead of playing scared, the Big Red went on to score four unanswered goals and win the national championship.
The game itself could have gone either way, for the teams were evenly matched. Maryland can point to the astonishingly high number of saves Cornell's junion goaltender Dan MacKesey made--28, another tournament record--and to the fact that star attackman Mike Hynes had broken his foot against Brown and misssed the final. At the end, however, only Richie Moran, Cornell's fiery coach (he was so enraged by an official's call that he played the game under protest) was able to tell a cheering partison crowd: "Cornell is Number One."
