The Cornell Big Red are back in the NCAA quarterfinals and will look to punch their ticket to the Final Four for the first time since 2022. Standing in their way are the Richmond Spiders, who will make their first appearance in the quarterfinals in program history. The game is scheduled for noon EST in Hempstead, New York.
In case you missed our other previews this week, check them out below:
The College Lacrosse Show Podcast: Previewing Every Game
It’s a rematch of one of the best games of the season, a dramatic 12-11 comeback win for the Big Red over the Spiders in March. Other than the game they lost to Penn State, that was the closest game the Big Red have had this year.
It’s a great contrast of history and fresh blood in college lacrosse. The Big Red will be looking to make their 15th Final Four in program history, while Richmond is looking to further extend this program record season.
It’s also a great matchup between the nation’s best offence and one of its best defences. Richmond currently has the nation’s second ranked scoring defence.
It also features several of the nation’s best players, including the shoo-in Tewaaraton winner in CJ Kirst, who already set the all-time scoring record and has his sights on the single-season record. Now up to 74 goals, he is within 8 of the single-season goals record set by Jon Reese in 1990.
But he isn’t the only one. In the Inside Lacrosse All-American lists released this week, Cornell had seven players listed including first-team members Kirst and Willem Firth, and third-team members Hugh Kelleher, Ryan Goldstein and Jack Cascadden. For the Spiders, defenders Hunter Smith and Mitchell Dunham were named second-team and honourable mention All-Americans respectively, while SSDM Jack Pilling was named third-team. Joe Sheridan and Zach Vigue were also named All-Americans.
The team rankings can be found below.
| Team | Scoring O | Scoring D | Faceoff |
| Cornell | 1 | 2 | 12 |
| Richmond | 8 | 27 | 44 |
These rankings don’t quite do justice to the Cornell offence, which is currently first by a fair margin. They average more than a full assist per game more than the next closest team (Army) and more than 2 assists more than the next closest tournament team (Siena). Their 16.38 goals per game is the best by a mile and is even better than last season’s dominant Notre Dame team.
Richmond is one of only two remaining teams (the other is Notre Dame) who are in the top ten both in scoring offence and scoring defence, making them one of the most balanced teams in the country.
Keys to Victory
Cornell – Manage Turnovers
Cornell dominated the faceoff battle in their first matchup with the Spiders and will hope to have a similar impact in this game. But the Big Red would go on to commit 19 turnovers against the staunch Richmond defence, a number they will try to avoid this go-around.
The Big Red have shot the ball extremely efficiently this year, shooting under 30% just twice all season. Given that, turnovers are one of the only ways that teams have had success against Cornell, and it needs to be a focus Saturday. Even if they aren’t scoring, Cornell needs to use long possessions to wear down the Richmond defence and hope it pays dividends later in the game.
Richmond – Personnel / Scheme Questions
Richmond has some very interesting decisions to make. Let’s start with the matchups, where Hunter Smith guarded Kirst arguably better than any other defender this year. He figures to stay on that matchup, while Dunham figures to bump to Goldstein. But is that a given? Mikey Long had the game winning goal against the Spiders and has been hot recently, might we see Dunham take some reps there? Could we see them mix it up on a possession by possession basis?
In the midfield, Cornell was one of just two teams (the other being Syracuse) to have two offensive midfielders on the All-America teams. Richmond has a very good ROPE led by Pilling and LSM Tommy Stull. Most teams have elected to cover Firth with the LSM, for a variety of reasons that include taking Cornell out of the Firth / Kirst 2-man game. But Kelleher was the Ivy Midfielder of the Year and is on a hot-streak himself. Richmond might opt to put the pole on the big fella.
And all of that relates to the schematic decisions that coach Chemotti and his staff choose to make. Nobody has had much success defensively recently against Cornell playing it straight up. Albany had some success last week against Cornell by nearly shutting Ryan Goldstein (or at minimum pressing out) and trying to make life difficult.
But that’s not Richmond’s identity, as they play one of the most disciplined, non-gimmicky styles in the country. Will they decide to go outside their comfort zone to take a risk? Or will they draw confidence from the last Cornell game and hope that their top-ranked defence comes through.
Both – Ground Balls
Cornell technically won the ground ball effort in the first game 33-30. But that comes with a 19-8 advantage in faceoffs. If you remove those, Richmond dominated the loose balls 22-14 and coach Buczek mentioned the ground balls postgame.
Richmond will need these extra possessions if the faceoffs once again don’t go their way and Cornell will look to dominate in a statistic that the program takes a lot of pride in.
Spiders Stretching the Field
I was really impressed with the shooting from the Spiders in their win over UNC. They scored several goals from distance, including multiple that crushed the top corners of the goal. I thought the TSN turning point in that game was the goal by Gavin Creo, where he split down the alley and punished the upper 90.
And here is another one from Lukas Olsson, who can similarly sling it from deep.
Spiders take their first lead of the game with Olsson's second goal of the day!#OneRichmond pic.twitter.com/vzUSVlrq9B
— Richmond Lacrosse (@SpiderMLAX) May 10, 2025
Every team wants to pack it in this time of year, and Cornell is coming off a strong game defensively against Albany. Wyatt Knust is in good form of late for Cornell as well, making 15, 12 and 12 saves in his last three games. He made 16 saves in the first matchup between these two, and will need to be good again Saturday.
But if the Spiders can consistently score from deep, they will have something cooking.
X Factors
Cornell – Chris Davis
Davis missed the first matchup to injury but has been improving every game since returning to the lineup. The multi-year captain is Cornell’s best at SSDM and will be tested against a Richmond midfield that is led by Joe Sheridan and features a number of players like Creo who can get their own shot. But more importantly, Cornell will be happy to have one of their leaders and Captains back for this one, in front of what should be an enormous crowd in Hempstead.
Jack Pilling and Tommy Stull
I am going double ROPE on this one but Pilling and Stull will be important for two reasons. The first is the obvious difficulty of guarding not one but two All-Americans in the midfield, but the second will be their conditioning. Once again, if Cornell can win draws, their pace and depth will test the Richmond D. They like to have Pilling and Stull play a lot of minutes, and it will be interesting to see if they can hold up physically over the course of the day. The 75 degree weather that’s expected should be ideal, and these two Spiders will earn their keep tomorrow.
It should be another great matchup, I can’t wait to watch!
Faceoff is noon EST!