Two years ago in the Philadelphia area, Kara Cannizzaro made Cazenovia proud by leading North Carolina’s women’s lacrosse team to an NCAA championship, beating Maryland in triple overtime for the crown and earning tournament Most Outstanding Player honors.
Now Kara has company in her own family as her younger brothers, Sean and Connor Cannizzaro, helped take the University of Denver men’s lacrosse team to a national title – also beating Maryland, and also doing so in Philadelphia.
When the Pioneers knocked off the Terrapins 10-5 at Lincoln Financial Field Monday afternoon, it marked the first time that a college team, male or female, located west of the Mississippi River has earned an NCAA crown.
And the Cannizzaro brothers had much to do with that accomplishment, having joined forces in Denver under head coach Bill Tierney, the former Princeton coach whose move west stunned the college lacrosse establishment in 2009.
Sean Cannizzaro went there first, fresh off leading Cazenovia to its first-ever state Class C title in 2011, where he was state tournament MVP to cap a career that included 240 career points.
He quickly established himself as a top midfielder for the Pioneers, who started making regular NCAA tournament visits and reached the national semifinals in 2014, falling to Duke 15-12. Sean had seven goals and nine assists in his junior campaign.
Meanwhile, Connor Cannizzaro had played a key role in both the 2011 and 2013 state title teams, getting four goals and three assists in the ’13 state final to run his career totals to 284 goals and 143 assists, both of which are school records.
As his college choice, Connor, unlike his brother, chose to say east – and went to Maryland, where in 2014 he scored 26 goals and added eight assists as the Terrapins reached the national semifinals before falling to Notre Dame.
Even with that, though, Connor chose to transfer to Denver and reunite with his older brother, and together they and their Pioneer teammates would author an historic 2015 story.
Denver lost just twice this season, to North Carolina (12-10) and Ohio State (13-11). But starting with a 10-4 victory over Lehigh on March 17, the Pioneers would win its last 13 games.
Again, Sean Cannizzaro was a distributor and leader on the field, doing many intangible things that don’t show up on the stat sheet. But Connor filled up that sheet, earning 57 goals and finishing 33 assists, second on the team in both categories.
Connor’s 90 points set a Denver single-season school record, and helped to earn him U.S. Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association All-American first-team honors.
Adding an extra incentive, for the first time, the NCAA would hold tournament quarterfinal games in Denver, and the Pioneers were seeded so that it could play there if it won in the opening round May 10 against Brown at Peter Barton Stadium.
After clearing out snow (yes, snow in May) to beat Brown 15-9, the Pioneers went across town to Invesco Field, the home of the Denver Broncos and, six days later, avenged its regular-season defeat to Ohio State, prevailing 15-13 to earn a trip to Philadelphia for championship weekend.
As it turned out, the biggest drama came in Saturday’s national semifinal, against Notre Dame. Up 10-5 in the fourth quarter, Denver squandered that lead and the game went to overtime, but the Pioneers forced a turnover and, into that extra period, Peter Berg (later named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player) scored for an 11-10 victory.
Now it all rode on the final – ironically enough, against the same Maryland program Connor Cannizzaro had left a year earlier, and the same Maryland school Kara and her North Carolina mates had conquered in that epic NCAA women’s final two years earlier.
But Denver led this game from start to finish. It jumped on Maryland 4-1 in the first quarter, saw the lead shrink to two, 5-3, at halftime, and then shut out the Terps for most of the second half. Sean and Connor Cannizzaro each scored one goal, with Sean adding an assist in his college finale.
