April 29, 2007
ITHACA, N.Y. — Senior Kendall Thrift had three goals and four assists as the the ninth-ranked Vanderbilt women’s lacrosse team defeated Cornell, 16-10, Sunday at Schoellkopf Field.
Junior goalkeeper Brooke Shinaberry had an outstanding game, making 13 saves on the day. Defensively, junior Sasha Cielak led a strong VU effort with four caused turnovers and five ground balls.
Vanderbilt (11-4) won its 11th game in the regular season for the first time in school history. The Commodores are one win away from tying their all-time season high for victories, set during the 2004 run to the NCAA Final Four.
Senior Jennifer Tapscott, junior Margie Curran and freshman Allie Frank also contributed hat-tricks to the offensive effort. The Commodores opened the second half on a 9-1 run to secure the victory, but the Big Red had led the entire first half.
Early in the game, Cornell forced Vanderbilt to call a timeout after opening the game with a bang and taking a 3-0 lead by the sixth minute on goals from Alison McKeown, Courtney Farrell and Noelle Dowd.
The Big Red would keep the early pressure on, with Katherine Simmons tallying a goal in the 11th minute.
The Commodores got their first goal of the game when Tapscott scored unassisted at the 12:53 mark, and Giordano followed off an assist from Thrift. Thrift would have three assists in the opening 30 minutes.
The teams traded goals, with the Big Red maintaining a lead throughout the first half. Downing picked up a Thrift pass with four seconds left in the period to bring the Commodores within one at the break, 6-5.
Paschall tied the game just over a minute into the second half, scoring an unassisted goal that helped lead to Vanderbilt’s first lead. After Shinaberry saved a free position shot and Frew picked up the ground ball, Downing found Thrift in front of the goal to give the Commodores a 7-6 advantage with 26:21 remaining in the game.
After nearly 10 minutes without a goal, a game-tying effort by Cornell was called off for an offsides violation. The Commodores ran a fast break, and Thrift found Frank in front of the goal to give VU an 8-6 lead. Curran controlled the ensuing draw, and a feed from Cielak found Frank behind the defense for her second consecutive goal. Curran again found the back of the net a minute later.
The Big Red’s scoreless streak came to an end after over 21 minutes when Farrell tallied to make the score 10-7. Vanderbilt would score the next four goals, including tallies by Giordano, Frank, Thrift and Curran.
In the middle of that run, Cornell had another goal overturned when Charlotte Schmidlapp was found to have an illegal stick.
In the waning minutes of the game, Thrift and Tapscott would each cap their hat-tricks as the teams traded goals.
With 29 assists on the year, Thrift tied the VU single-season record for assists — matching former Vanderbilt All-American Michelle Allen’s 2004 senior campaign.
The Commodores now turn their attention to the inaugural American Lacrosse Conference Tournament, hosted at Baltimore’s Homewood Field next weekend (May 3-6). Vanderbilt, which secured the league’s second seed, will face the third seed and event host Johns Hopkins at 7:30 p.m. ET on Friday, May 4.
The tournament begins on Thursday, May 3, with Penn State facing Ohio State in the play-in game for the right to take on top-seed Northwestern in Friday’s semifinals. Winners of Friday’s games will face off on Sunday for the tournament championship and automatic NCAA berth.
