{"id":9890,"date":"2026-03-02T20:53:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T01:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/?p=9890"},"modified":"2026-05-06T20:53:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T00:53:40","slug":"red-dragons-take-down-no-8-rpi-in-season-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/2026\/03\/02\/red-dragons-take-down-no-8-rpi-in-season-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Dragons take down\u00a0No. 8\u00a0RPI\u00a0in Season Opener\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From the opening faceoff to the final whistle,&nbsp;No. 16&nbsp;Cortland controlled the pace and surged past No. 8 RPI&nbsp;17-10 to&nbsp;open the semester&nbsp;on&nbsp;February 18.&nbsp;The big win was a turnaround from Cortland\u2019s preseason loss to Union College.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With three different Cortland players registering at least six points, the Red Dragon offense made a powerful statement.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Stefan Swedlund, a junior attackman, led the team&nbsp;with&nbsp;six goals&nbsp;against the&nbsp;Engineers.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cOffensively,&nbsp;we really connected, there&nbsp;were&nbsp;no selfish goals,\u201d said&nbsp;Swedlund.&nbsp;\u201cEvery goal that we scored was&nbsp;assisted.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Swedlund was also named the SUNYAC&nbsp;Men\u2019s&nbsp;Lacrosse&nbsp;Offensive&nbsp;Athlete of the&nbsp;Week&nbsp;after his impressive performance on&nbsp;Wednesday.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Junior goalie&nbsp;Charlie&nbsp;Falowski&nbsp;also&nbsp;earned&nbsp;SUNYAC&nbsp;Men\u2019s&nbsp;Lacrosse&nbsp;Defensive&nbsp;Athlete of the&nbsp;Week&nbsp;honors&nbsp;after&nbsp;recording&nbsp;18 saves against RPI.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a goalie,&nbsp;Falowski&nbsp;said focusing on the controllables is the most important thing.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI felt my teammates and I were well prepared&nbsp;going&nbsp;into this game, which gave us the confidence to go out there and execute\u201d&nbsp;said&nbsp;Falowski.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cortland&#8217;s offense featured strong contributions across the board against RPI.&nbsp;In addition to&nbsp;Swedlund\u2019s&nbsp;six goals,&nbsp;junior Nick Stoecker&nbsp;recorded&nbsp;a career-high of seven points on three goals and four assists.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Adding to the scoring&nbsp;surge, sophomore Mason Carroll&nbsp;added&nbsp;a hat&nbsp;trick, while&nbsp;sophomore Eli Volk&nbsp;chipped in&nbsp;two goals for the Red Dragons.&nbsp;Junior Caden Morra also contributed a goal and two assists.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Senior&nbsp;captain&nbsp;Dino Bowen&nbsp;made&nbsp;his&nbsp;presence&nbsp;felt&nbsp;beyond the scoring column,&nbsp;scooping&nbsp;up four&nbsp;ground&nbsp;balls&nbsp;and&nbsp;forcing two&nbsp;turnovers.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The two ranked programs went back and forth in the opening minutes, with RPI scoring first before Cortland answered almost&nbsp;immediately&nbsp;with a goal from&nbsp;Swedlund.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The&nbsp;Engineers briefly regained the lead, but Carroll responded with a coast-to-coast goal from midfield to tie the game 2-2.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Swedlund later gave Cortland their lead and completed his hat trick&nbsp;late in the quarter to send Cortland ahead into the second&nbsp;quarter with a 4-3 lead.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Red Dragons came out strong in the second quarter looking to build on&nbsp;their&nbsp;late first-quarter momentum.&nbsp;Freshman&nbsp;Drew Williamee netted his first collegiate career goal&nbsp;off&nbsp;a&nbsp;man-upfeed from&nbsp;junior&nbsp;Sean Kavanagh.&nbsp;&nbsp;After Swedlund added another, Cortland had a 6-3 lead on the #8 ranked team.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With Cortland leading 9-6 in the final minute of the first half, RPI put two more on the board, closing the gap and&nbsp;trimming&nbsp;the halftime&nbsp;margin&nbsp;to 9-8.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe went into the second half with the same mentality as we did to start the game which consisted of staying in control of the clearing&nbsp;game and&nbsp;pushing transition when we got the&nbsp;chance,\u201dsaid Carroll.&nbsp;\u201cDefense also made a few tweaks in the second half to hold RPI to only two goals which gave us many more offensive opportunities.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Red Dragons&nbsp;opened&nbsp;the second half&nbsp;with four unanswered goals,&nbsp;including&nbsp;two more from Swedlund, and one&nbsp;each&nbsp;from Carroll and Kavanagh.&nbsp;Although&nbsp;RPI&nbsp;capitalized on&nbsp;a man-up opportunity, Volk and Stoecker responded,&nbsp;giving Cortland a comfortable lead to enter the third quarter.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the fourth quarter, the Red Dragons defense shut the door.&nbsp;Falowski&nbsp;stood tall in the net, saving eight shots in the closing minutes of the game.&nbsp;Cortland added&nbsp;a&nbsp;few more goals securing a 17\u201310 victory and completing a statement-making start to the season.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBeing able to start off the season with a top 10&nbsp;win and&nbsp;getting our revenge on&nbsp;RPI from&nbsp;last year is huge for our team,\u201d said Swedlund. \u201cEnergy following the win has been at an&nbsp;all-time&nbsp;high and we&nbsp;are hoping to ride this wave for as long as we can.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cortland returns to action next Wednesday against No. 11 St. Lawrence, aiming to build on its early-season momentum.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the opening faceoff to the final whistle,&nbsp;No. 16&nbsp;Cortland controlled the pace and surged past No. 8 RPI&nbsp;17-10 to&nbsp;open the semester&nbsp;on&nbsp;February 18.&nbsp;The big win was a turnaround from Cortland\u2019s preseason loss to Union College.&nbsp;&nbsp; With three different Cortland players registering at least six points, the Red Dragon offense made a powerful statement.&nbsp;&nbsp; Stefan Swedlund, a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":480,"featured_media":9892,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[116,43],"class_list":["post-9890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cortland-lacrosse","tag-sports","entry"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2026\/03\/Screenshot-2026-03-02-at-2.14.50-PM.png","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2026\/03\/Screenshot-2026-03-02-at-2.14.50-PM.png","author_info":{"display_name":"cali.brancato","author_link":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/author\/cali-brancato\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/480"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}