Senior Kyle Jussila became Cornell’s new all-time leader for career points Saturday as the Rams came through late on the road to win their Midwest Lacrosse Conference opener against University of Northwestern, 8-7.
Jussila accounted for four goals and one assist, boosting his career points total to 127. He passed A.J. Fisher (124 points, 2016-18) atop the program’s career scoring list.
The Rams (4-7, 1-0 MLC) jumped on UNW early, taking a 3-0 lead after the first quarter courtesy of a hat trick by Jussila, who added three ground balls and three caused turnovers for the day.
After the Eagles (1-6, 0-1 MLC) started keying on Jussila, Jackson Kinart and John Linderman came through with two more goals of their own to give Cornell a 5-0 first half lead. Kinart and Linderman went on to combine for five points between the pair.
Luke Baldwin’s goal 15 seconds into the third quarter gave the Rams a 6-3 lead, but UNW struck back with four goals in a row to take the lead with only five minutes remaining.
Linderman made his presence felt all game while firing 11 total shots on net. With under a minute to go, he scored his second goal of the day to tie the game at 7-7 with under five minutes in regulation.
Cornell took a timeout with two minutes to go following a one minute slashing penalty called against UNW, giving the Rams time to plan for their extra-man opportunity. Starting with the ball in their offensive end, Linderman fired two great shots that just missed. After some impressive ball movement, Jussila scored on a great pass from Ethan Kupka to convert on the extra-man opportunity and take the 8-7 lead with only one minute to play.
Evan Begner was in the net for the full 60 minutes today, gathering 12 total saves and moving to 4-5 on the season. Begner is now at 148 saves on the year, approaching the school mark of 159 saves in a season set by Evan Kedjidjian (2016).
Earlier in the week, Cornell men’s lacrosse had to deal with a less than ideal power outage delay while on the road for a game with Augustana College, with the Vikings ended up emerging victorious, 17-4.
The Rams (3-7) were working to shrink the deficit throughout the second quarter, but those efforts were derailed after the lights of Thorson-Lucken Field went out with five minutes remaining in the half.
After the delay that lasted over 60 minutes, it only took Kupka two minutes to get on the board, giving Cornell the final score of the half.
Demarius Pittman has been finishing more scoring opportunities as of late, connecting on a season high two goals tonight. One goal was assisted by Linderman, the other by Jussila. Linderman finished with two assists, while Jussila had one goal and an assist.
Thomas Cook was the goalkeeper for the Rams throughout the long night, saving a season high 13 shots on goal.