Big Red weekend: Hockey team and wrestler take titles

By Blaine P. Friedlander Jr.

In Cornell's sports history, it was a big red-letter weekend: Going from the depths of despair to the height of euphoria, the men's hockey team beat Harvard, 3-2, in overtime to win the East Coast Athletic Conference (ECAC) championship March 22 at the Pepsi Arena in Albany. The team earned the top seed in the upcoming NCAA East Regional tournament at Providence, R.I.

Lee

And sophomore Travis Lee beat Purdue's top-seeded and previously unbeaten Chris Fleeger, 6-4, to become the national wrestling champion in his weight class at the NCAA tournament in Kansas City, March 22. Lee, who wrestles in the 125-pound category, has become Cornell's first national champion since David Hirsch in 1994, the second champion since 1960 and the seventh national champion in the university's history.

In the ECAC championship game, Cornell (28-4-1) was given a second life with seconds to spare. Trailing Harvard 2-1 with 1:27 remaining in the game, the Big Red pulled goalie David LeNeveu for an extra skater. Then with less than a minute in the game, Ryan Vesce won a face-off and passed the puck to Mark McRae, who scored with 32.3 seconds left in the game. Tied at 2, the game went into overtime.

Early in overtime, Mark McRae won a face-off and passed to Sam Paolini. On the left side of the rink, Paolini used a left-handed shot to send the puck to the far-post side of the net to score the game-winning shot at 1:23 in overtime.

For more than 10 minutes the Cornell fans -- in the crowd of 8,296 -- felt the joy of Pepsi and cheered uncontrollably.

On Sunday the NCAA announced that the Cornell men's hockey team will be the No. 1 seed in the East Regional round of the national tournament this weekend, and it is the top overall seed in the entire 16-team field. The Big Red will play Minnesota State University-Mankato at noon Saturday, March 29, in Providence, R.I. The winner of the game will advance to play the regional championship at noon on Sunday, March 30.

Complete information on this weekend's East Regional tournament can be found on the Providence College Athletics Web site at http://friars.ocsn.com.

Details of a television broadcast were not available at press time.

The winners from each regional site will advance to the Frozen Four, which will be played April 10-12 at the HSBC Arena in Buffalo.

In NCAA wrestling, Cornell senior Clint Wattenberg, 197 pounds, finished fifth in his weight class at the tournament, defeating Princeton's Greg Parker. Freshman Dustin Manotti (149) finished the tournament in eighth place. Cornell finished 10th overall in the tournament, the highest finish for Cornell since finishing 10th in 1993. The Big Red finished third in 1991 and last won a national wrestling championship in 1923, five years before the NCAA tournament began.

To keep up with Cornell athletics, visit the Web site: http://cornellbigred.ocsn.com/.