Watchdog

That CBS Scene bar/restaurant outside Gillette Stadium is quite cool looking. But it's open even on non-game days, kind of like that steak house at Yankee Stadium. I asked a worker whether it's often dead when there isn't an event going on. She said that it is.

Difficult to tell from press box exactly how the crowd broke down, but Syracuse fans appeared to outnumber Cornell's. Regardless, impressive showing by Central New York fans schlepping to Massachusetts two years in a row. Back to Baltimore next year. There is talk of bringing the lax final four to the new Jets/Giants stadium some year soon.

I was confused after the game about how exactly the game-tying sequence unfolded, because it happened quickly, and because ESPN was busy showing sideline shots early in the play rather than the action. Max Seibald had told me that usually when only one man is on him at the end line, he carries the ball out himself. But in this case he said he passed it to Max Feely along the left sideline because Feely was open and he has full confidence in all of his teammates. Then Feely passed to Matt Moyer, who should have flung the ball 50 feet into the air as soon as he sensed trouble. But he didn't. And, well, that was that.

Entering the NCAA, Cornell's weakness widely was perceived to be its goalie, Jake Myers, a transfer from Syracuse who grew up in the San Diego area, of all places. But Myers played his best when it counted most. The loss certainly wasn't his fault.

If Syracuse had won uneventfully, my column would have been about how for all of the justified pride in the lacrosse world for how far and fast the sport has spread, it still is stuck in a place similar to women's basketball, with a small group of schools dominating the upper reaches of the NCAAs. The Orangemen's 11th title meant that since Cornell's 1977 championship, there still are only five programs to win it all: Johns Hopkins, North Carolina, Syracuse, Princeton and Virginia. Other than Princeton, no team from outside Central New York or the Maryland/Virginia/North Carolina corridor has won the tournament, which dates to 1971.

If Cornell had won, I would have written about the program's return to glory and the emotional inspiration it has derived from the legacies of Eamon McEneaney, a star of the late 1970s out of Sewanhaka who died at the World Trade Center on 9/11, and George Boiardi, a captain who died in a 2004 game after being hit in the chest with a ball.

Speaking of Boiardi, for a time late Monday afternoon his name skyrocketed to the most searched term on Google Trends, presumably after ESPN's announcers discussed him late in the game, when it appeared Cornell was going to win.

Lynbrook's own Quint Kessenich, ESPN's game analyst, quickly offered a series of legitimate second-guesses after Syracuse tied the game - from Cornell's failure to call a timeout, to Max Seibald's failure to run the ball in from the end line himself to Matt Moyer's failure simply to fling the ball downfield to waste the last 15 seconds or so. He certainly was right about Seibald, who later beat himself up over the same decision.

The game secured the first and third spots on SportsCenter's top plays roundup.

Listened to pretty much the entire Mets game on the radio during the long drive home. Rose/Hagin are good.

The X's and O's of the game certainly justified more treatment than I gave them in my column, but I figured for a general audience I should stick to a broader theme - such as the disappointment of Hewlett's own Seibald, a leader whose level of respect inside and outside the program is difficult to overstate. He is only the second lone team captain for Cornell since 1966.

Was honored to work the game with Bob Herzog, Syracuse alum and Newsday lax scribe. He hired me as a part-timer in 1982 and still is going strong - with a head of hair usually seen only on men 20 years younger than he is. (His son went to Cornell, BTW.)

This was the third consecutive time I've attended a Cornell lacrosse game in the NCAAs and they lost by a goal - 11-10 to Johns Hopkins in the 1987 final at Rutgers, 12-11 to Duke in the 2007 semis in Baltimore and now this.

One day in the spring of 1982 I left my shift at the student union early, claiming I wasn't feeling well. My supervisor said, "OK, enjoy the lacrosse game." Cornell beat Army, 11-9, in an NCAA quarterfinal at Schoellkopf.

Thanks for reading. I'm done now.