The men’s lacrosse team (1-9, 0-3 Ivy) took on No. 10 Cornell (7-3, 3-1 Ivy) in Ithaca Saturday following two losses against Villanova (6-5) and Yale (7-2, 3-1 Ivy). Despite a strong start against the heavily favored Big Red, a tough third quarter forced Bruno to go home with a 14-8 loss.
"I'm pretty proud of our team and their effort," Head Coach Mike Daly said via Brown Athletics. "They continue to fight and battle and though there were a lot of winning plays and moments against a good team on the road …We will continue to fight our way out."
Though Bruno left New York with a disappointing result, they put up a strong fight against the overwhelming Cornell attack. The Big Red lost the ball 17 times during the match, 10 of which were forced errors by the Bears’ defense. Brown only dropped possession 12 times.
In net, Connor Theriault ’24 stopped 17 shots, putting on a stellar performance to keep the Bears from dropping further behind the Big Red.
Brown’s offense was relentless, firing 52 shots compared to Cornell’s 45. Unfortunately, Cornell’s goalkeeper Wyatt Knust was unbeatable, blocking 24 of those shots and helping Cornell survive the early onslaught of the Bears’ attacks.
Jackson Wolfram ’27 opened the scoring in the twelfth minute, making his seventh goal of the season to take Brown to a 1-0 lead. Matteo Corsi ’25 notched his tenth goal of the season only two minutes and 15 seconds later.
Ultimately, the Bears’ inability to convert on possession led to their collapse. In the first quarter, Brown put 18 shots and 10 on goal, dominated possession and forced the Cornell keeper to sit on his heels. But this phenomenal attack was answered by a late Cornell goal in the last five minutes which put the Big Red back in the game.
After an early goal from Cornell’s Ryan Goldstein, Bruno scored three times in the second quarter with both Ben Scandone ’26 and Aidan McLane ’25 grabbing their first goal of the game.
“It’s incredibly difficult to defend against an offense with multiple threats, so to have four different goal-scorers right off the bat put their defense in a tough position,” Scandone wrote in an email to The Herald.
While the Bears shot 17 times to Cornell’s eight in that quarter, Bruno once again only came away with one more goal than the Big Red.
“From the jump, we played the brand of lacrosse that we love — fast-paced, making gritty, tough plays,” Scandone wrote. “Lacrosse is a game of runs, so it is always nice to be the first team to go on one, but a game is 60 minutes, not 30. Putting together a strong first half is awesome, but we knew they would come out in the second half and have their runs.”
And Cornell went on an impressive run during the second half to rip the victory out of the Bears’ grasp. The 7-2 third quarter was where the game was lost.
Scandone scored his second goal of the day at the beginning of the third. Cornell then scored two unanswered goals, and, while it seemed like Trey Taylor ’26 might shut down their run after scoring his first goal of the day, there was no stopping the Cornell offense. They fired five unanswered goals to put the Bears down 10-7 at the end of the third.
The Bears would not recover their lead for the rest of the match.
During the fourth quarter, Cornell scored four more goals before the Bears could score again. But Spencer Hughes’s ’25 goal felt less like redemption and more like a final breath as the Bears were crushed under the relentless onslaught of Cornell’s attack.
“I thought we played a great game against Cornell. We consistently show that we can play against any team that happens to show up on game day, but as our coaches always say, we need to play a full 60 minutes,” Scandone wrote.
Next week, the Bears will take on Princeton at home, still chasing their first Ivy League win of the season.
“We aren’t going anywhere, and we will continue to fight to prove what kind of team we are,” Scandone wrote. “Princeton is just another opportunity to do that.”
Dennis Carey is a Sports Editor who enjoys playing volleyball, listening to and collecting vinyl records, and poorly playing the guitar in his spare time.
