F. Hockey tries to improve on grass

The tiny ball goes scuttling half the length of the field and comes to rest on the stick of Penn defender Rani Bajwa, its sender as much a blur as the white projectile she has just dead stopped. Bajwa has seen a blast like that before. She's been stopping them for years. It has to be Sally Wharton. Wharton and Bajwa have enjoyed a friendly rivalry dating back to high school in Washington, when Bajwa was a star at Sidwell Friends and Wharton was rattling cages at Fultonheim. The two have found themselves at odds again in college, with Wharton keying Lafayette's big-ball attack, and Bajwa establishing herself as a mainstay on the Penn defense. "I know for a fact she can hit it like a bullet," Bajwa said. "I think she typifies Lafayette. They're not pretty players, but they get the job done. They're excellent grass players." And that is a fact that does not bode well for the Quakers, who struggled on grass with the big-ball game Saturday in a 3-0 loss to Delaware. When the Quakers travel to Lafayette today for the 3:30 p.m. contest, it will only be more of the same. "The Lafayette game is going to be very similar to Delaware," Penn coach Anne Sage said. "I think we have to make the adjustments to grass, but we shouldn't blow it out of proportion because a good team ought to be able to play well on brick." The Quakers will also have to be more aggressive and take advantage of the their scoring opportunities, especially in forcing and converting on corners. Against Delaware, Penn nearly matched the Blue Hens in shots on goal, but failed to put the ball in the cage. The No. 16 Leopards (3-1), fresh from a confidence-building 1-0 loss to No. 4 Penn State, have had little problem scoring. Forwards Jenn Burkin (four goals in four games) and Angie Eifert (two goals) will combine with Wharton to head the Lafayette attack. "We're a young team, but we have a real cohesive unit," Lafayette coach Ann Gold said. "It ought to be a good matchup. We're obviously aware that Amy Pine can be Penn's catalyst, but we expect them to be very solid all around." Gold will likely use defender and defensive specialist Toni Vi Ottavio to mark Pine and protect the Leopards' talented, if inexperienced, goalkeeper, Danielle De Horatius. Though De Horatius has started only four games at the college level, she boasts a 0.89 goals against average. "We hope Penn will be worrying about us as much as we're worrying about them," Gold said. In truth, the Quakers are more concerned about executing their own game plan than adjusting to their opponent's strategy. "The coaches said against Delaware, we let ourselves be defeated by the surface," Bajwa said. "We failed to execute, we failed to play our game. We need to build the confidence that we can play our game on grass. We need to be confident that we can still make nice passes and we can still make good plays in spite of the surface. "We're definitely fired up to play. Losing is not our thing. We'll be ready to play." So will her old nemesis, Sally Wharton.

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