SEEING RED: Princeton University men’s lacrosse player Chad Palumbo, right, battles to get past a foe in a game earlier this season. Last Saturday, senior attacker Palumbo tallied two goals and two assists, passing the 100-point mark in his career in the process, but it wasn’t enough as Princeton fell 13-11 to Cornell. The No. 7 Tigers, now 5-2 overall and 1-1 Ivy League after suffering their seventh straight loss to the Big Red, play at Brown on March 28 and then host Lehigh on March 31. (Photo by Frank Jacobs III)
By Bill Alden
Chad Palumbo hit a special milestone for the Princeton University men’s lacrosse team last Saturday as he tallied the 100th point of his career, but the senior star wasn’t particularly excited about that achievement.
With that accomplishment coming on a day that saw Princeton fall 13-11 to Cornell before a crowd of 2,188 packing Class of 1952 Stadium, Palumbo was more focused on the team’s prospects.
“It is one of those things that is like cool but not important,” said attacker and team captain Palumbo. “I am sure when I graduate, I will look back on it. We are in the middle of the season so I have bigger fish to fry than worrying about points.”
Having lost six straight in the rivalry with Cornell, including a 20-15 loss to the Big Red in the Ivy League Tournament final last year, the No. 3 Tigers experienced some unfortunate dèjá vu early in the contest as they fell behind 5-2 10 minutes into the contest. After drawing to within 8-6 late in the second quarter, No. 10 and defending NCAA champion Cornell scored a buzzer-beating goal to take a 9-6 lead into halftime.
At intermission, the message was basic. “It was play cleaner lacrosse, we didn’t play Tiger lacrosse today,” said Palumbo.
Princeton scored four goals in the third quarter to cut the Cornell lead to 12-10 but couldn’t get any closer on the way to the 13-11 setback.
“I felt like we were getting advantages the whole game,” said Palumbo. “Sometimes we connected on them, sometimes we didn’t. We just didn’t get it done, it was just sloppy.”
Palumbo acknowledged that the Cornell defense made things hard for the Tigers.
“They are a good defense, they have good players,” said Palumbo, who ended up with two goals and two assists on the day. “They don’t do anything special. They are hard-nosed defense and they are really clean with their rotations. They play good team defense, they have great sticks.”
After having earned All-American honors last season at midfielder and coming into the spring getting named as the USA Lacrosse preseason Division I Midfielder of the Year, Palumbo was recently moved into the attack unit.
“I played attack my whole life, it is not a big deal,” said Palumbo, a 6’2, 205-pound native of Newton, Mass., who has nine goals and 10 assists this season and now has 103 points in his career on 63 goals and 40 assists. “Even when I came out of the box, I was below the net. I was an invert middle so I am comfortable with that.”
Being on the top attack line along with junior stars Colin Burns and Nate Kabiri has been comfortable for Palumbo.
“I have been playing with them for three years,” said Palumbo. “We try to be as connected as possible a unit as we can be.”
Princeton head coach Matt Madalon lamented his club’s sloppy play against the Big Red as it dropped to 5-2 overall and 1-1 Ivy League.
“I wished we just played better, it is not to take anything away from Cornell,” said Madalon. “They are a great team. It is always the team that makes the fewer mistakes that normally ends up in the W column. I just think we made a lot of mistakes today.”
Sharper execution was the theme of the halftime talk. “For us, it was clean up, play our systems, get going, move the ball better, and win the sudden change moments a little better,” said Madalon. “In a big-time game, you really shouldn’t have the mental lapses so it is frustrating.”
Madalon experienced more frustration when the Tigers failed to build on the momentum they gained in the third quarter.
“To be able to get it to 12-10, it was like at the end of that, you got this thing down to two, let’s see if we can play a good 15 minutes,” said Madalon, who got three goals and one assist from Tucker Wade in the loss with Kabiri tallying one goal and three assists. “Unfortunately we couldn’t execute.”
The Cornell defense executed throughout the contest. “They did a really good job,” said Madalon. “I thought they did a great job in the attack matchups and they were really disruptive in 6-on-6 defense. I thought Tully (goalie Matthew Tully – 15 saves) played great.”
While Madalon tipped his hat to Palumbo as he eclipsed the 100-point mark, he acknowledged that the senior standout misfired on occasion against the Big Red.
“Those are incredible milestones, those are truly awesome,” said Madalon. “He is a great player and a captain for us but we need more out of him. He had a couple of turnovers down the stretch trying to make plays.”
Displaying its balance with nine different players scoring goals, the Big Red attack got a lot out of its roster in moving to 5-2 overall and 2-0 Ivy.
“That is why Cornell is such a good program, they just kind of reload,” said Madalon. “They play to their systems, they did a really good job.”
With Princeton, now ranked seventh nationally by Inside Lacrosse, playing at Brown on March 28 and then hosting Lehigh on March 31, Palumbo believes the Tigers need to train better during the week to get back on the winning track.
“The focus going forward is practice — on game day you revert to how you practice,” said Palumbo. “Practices haven’t been consistent enough and you see it today. We have played seven games now and three or four of them have been pretty sloppy games. We came out with the Yale one (an 11-10 win on March 14), that was sloppy. This one, and in the Penn State one (a 13-7 loss on February 14), we were sloppy. That is just a product of inconsistent practices. If you can’t practice at a game level every day, you are not going to show up in the game.”