Penn misses spectrum sweep

After having already defeated the Big Red of Cornell and the Crimson of Harvard this season, the Penn women's lacrosse team failed to complete a sweep of the Ivy League color combination on Saturday. The Quakers suffered a 10-7 loss at the hands of the No. 8 Dartmouth Big Green in Hanover, N.H. The Red and Blue failed to show the same aggressive style of play that had lifted it over the previous hues they had met. "We didn't seem to have the same kind of desire that we had in our other games," Penn senior midfielder Jessica Gilhorn said. "When we played Harvard, we were very precise. We were sloppier against Dartmouth. We made some bad passes and didn't catch the ball as well. They were capitalizing on our mistakes better than we were capitalizing on theirs." The game was tied 4-4 at halftime. The Quakers (3-3, 2-1 Ivy League), however, allowed Dartmouth to quickly take the lead at the beginning of the second half. "They got a couple of quick goals right after halftime and really took control of the game," Penn sophomore midfielder Jamie Schemberg said. "It took us a while to get back into the swing of things after that." Sophomore midfielder Emmy Hansel was Penn's top performer. Hansel, who led the Quakers with three goals, hails from nearby Keene, N.H. "Emmy had an exceptional game," Schemberg said. "It was really neat, because her whole family was there." Despite the Big Green's high national ranking, the team is not as strong as it has been in recent years. "This is the weakest they've been in a while," Gilhorn said. "They used to be a great team, but they lost three key players from last year's team. I wasn't that impressed with them. That's what makes the loss so tough. "Everyone was pretty disappointed that we lost. We thought we could beat them, but they just outhustled us." Gilhorn says that Dartmouth was only ranked ahead of Penn going into the game because the competition they had played wasn't as stiff. "They haven't been playing any teams at the level of Temple and Loyola," Gilhorn said. Schemberg agrees that this was a game that the Quakers should have won. "They were definitely beatable, but we just didn't play to our full potential," she said. "They always seemed to have the first step on us." "Harvard and Dartmouth are pretty similar teams," Gilhorn added. "Dartmouth is a little more physical, but Harvard is more skilled." Penn takes on the Ivy League's top team, No. 2 Princeton, on Wednesday. The Tigers have already defeated Harvard and Dartmouth this season. "It's a shame that we have to face them coming off a loss," Gilhorn said. Still, the Quakers would be satisfied if the animal segment of their Ivy League schedule, in which they will also take on the Yale Bulldogs, the Columbia Lions and the Brown Bears, goes as well as the color part did.