Hockey Champs Again, Cornell Looks to Lacrosse

By Steve Lawrence

It comes around several times per year, and “overlap” season is a gift to sports fans. As things wrap up in the winter sports season, spring contests are just getting underway. Let's take a look at some of what's going on...

First, it's time to make room in the rafters at Lynah Rink, as the Big Red men's hockey team just won the Ivy League title for the 25th time in program history (and the third time in the last four years). Cornell University sealed the deal with a 5–1 thumping of Yale University — on the Bulldogs' home ice — and it is safe to say that the Big Red's long bus ride home was made more tolerable after the team lit up the lamp with at least five goals in all four regular-season games against Yale and Brown University.

Cornell will return to action on March 10 in the friendly confines of Lynah Rink, where it will host the first game of the best-of-three quarterfinal round of the ECAC Hockey Championship. Opponent, game time and ticket information will be released at a later date. ● ●

Another feel-good story from East Hill... As many readers will recall, Cornell women's squash player Sivasangari Subramaniam won the program's first-ever individual NCAA singles title last spring. Dating back to the previous season, the now-senior had won 19 matches in a row on her way to the title, she had been named the Ivy League Player of the Year (POY). Then, on a visit to her family's home in Malaysia last June, “Sivi” was involved in a career-threatening motor vehicle crash. She suffered severe injuries to her face — and most threatening to her squash career, to her neck — but she dug deep, did her rehab and came back strong. She sat out the fall season at Cornell, but this spring, she has run her unbeaten streak to 27 matches while winning another Ivy POY award. It really is an amazing comeback story. Six months ago, Subramaniam was wearing a cumbersome neck brace and needing help to do almost everything, and now she is back among the elite players in the game. ● ● ●

One more winter sports reference, again involving a spelling that makes journalists check twice... Yianni Diakomihalis, Cornell's senior 149-pound wrestler, is on the verge of history. At this writing, only four wrestlers have won four NCAA individual titles, and Yianni (and Iowa's Spencer Lee) will be trying to add their names to that elite list. The Rochester native will have an extra piece of motivation: if he wins: Cornell will be the only program with two four-time champs (Kyle Dake won four titles in four different weight classes and is the only grappler to do so.)

The NCAA Championships get underway in two weeks in Tulsa, Oklahoma. ● ● ●

Onto spring sports... another Big Red athlete has picked up where he left off last season, and junior men's lacrosse player CJ Kirst opened the season — and many eyes — with a six goal outburst in Cornell's openingday 12–10 win over University at Albany. He followed that up by finding the net three more times in Saturday's home opener, a

Cornell

12–5 win over Lehigh University. The Big Red defense really stepped up in the second half, holding their opponents scoreless.

Kirst and teammate Gavin Adler — a senior — are among 50 players on the prestigious Tewaaraton Watch List. The Tewaaraton Trophy is the lacrosse equivalent of football's Heisman Trophy, and it was last won by a Cornell player when Rob Pannell won it in 2013. Prior to that, Max Seibald took the honor in 2009.

#2 Cornell had just a few days off before traveling to Geneva, New York, to take on Hobart College (1–1) on Tuesday, Feb. 28. That score was not available when we went to press.