F. Hockey looks to rebound

Call it a fall break-down, call it a fluke, call it whatever you like, but the Penn field hockey team's two-game skid last weekend hit the squad like a linebacker from the blind side. Cornell completed a shocking 3-2 upset of the Quakers Saturday when Big Red senior defender Tara Lamb flicked a penalty shot past Penn senior goalkeeper Suzy Pures in the final minutes of play. Though the Quakers bounced back Tuesday to take an early 1-0 lead over No. 9 Penn State, the Nittany Lions' relentless attack simply wore Penn down, posting three unanswered goals en route to a 3-1 victory. The Quakers will try to stop the bleeding when they travel to Providence, R.I., to face Ivy League doormat Brown tomorrow. The Bears (2-8-1, 0-2-1 Ivy League) are mired in their own four-game losing streak, and struggling tooth and nail not to join Yale in the Ivy cellar. "I think what's important now is that they played well and they played hard against Penn State," Penn coach Anne Sage said. "I think the team was upset about the way they played against Cornell and they bounced back." In fairness, a win over a perennial powerhouse like Penn State (10-4-1) would have been a major coup for the Red and Blue. Yet when junior forward Kara Philbin poked a rebound past Nittany Lion goalkeeper Shelly Meister to open the scoring, it looked likely. But Penn State, buoyed by its chanting hoards of traveling fans, slashed its way through the Quaker defense. Junior forward Tara Maguire, sister of 1994 Penn grad Fran Maguire, scored twice before the half, including the go-ahead strike on a corner with only three seconds remaining. The second half saw the two teams battle it out on both ends of the turf to a vicious standstill before Nittany Lion defender Chris Blais added an insurance goal late in the game. "It was pretty much a 50-50 game," Philbin said. "If a couple of our corners had counted, it might have been a different story." Entering the Cornell game, a Big Red victory seemed about as likely as a '94 World Series. Penn, then ranked No. 16 in the nation, had not lost to Cornell since the Carter administration, and had beaten everyone it faced on Franklin Field this season. The Big Red, on the other hand, was still in search of its first Ivy League victory -- actually, their first Ivy League goal -- of the season. When Penn midfielder Amy Pine, the Ivy League's leading scorer, knocked home a goal on a corner early in the first half, it looked like another routine win for the Quakers. But less than four minutes later, Big Red midfielder Amy Meldrim scored the first goal of her collegiate career to even it up before halftime. Penn was sloppy from the opening whistle of the second half, while Cornell (5-5-1, 1-2), detecting the smell of an upset, turned up the heat. It was only a matter of minutes before sophomore forward Jeanette Viggiano hammered home a corner to give the Big Red a one-goal advantage. But the Quakers fought back to tie the score as Pine tallied her second goal of the game on an immaculate corner. It was Lamb, though, who made the play of the game, depositing the ball squarely in the top right corner of the cage to seal Penn's fate. "On any given day, anybody can lose," Sage said. "For some reason, Penn played scared today. We didn't play with confidence. We did create some scoring opportunities, but we just looked kind of tentative. I wish I knew why we lost." Maybe the Quakers weren't used to the 10 a.m. starting time. Maybe they were looking ahead to Penn State. Probably, they were just snakebitten. Now the loss to Cornell has disappointing consequences for the Penn's future. Barring a complete letdown by No. 11 Princeton, Penn will not earn its third consecutive Ivy League title, and a bid to the NCAA tournament. The Quakers' best prospect for postseason play now is to defeat both the Tigers and No. 16 Maryland convincingly, and then cross their fingers. "We know where we stand," senior midfielder Lily Ma said. "We're never going to let down. We're going to play it to the end."