Field Hockey tops Big Red for first Ivy win

It's not often that a team plays its best game of the season and loses, then plays a mediocre game and comes away with a win. But that is exactly what the Penn field hockey team accomplished this past week. Three days after losing to Temple, 1-0, by allowing the game's only goal in the final two minutes, the Quakers beat Cornell, 1-0, Saturday morning on Franklin Field in wet, cold conditions. "We weren't playing as well as we did against Temple," Penn senior co-captain Curran Kelly said. "We didn't play as well as we have in the past, but we did play hard when it counted and when we really needed to." The victory was the Quakers (5-6, 1-2 Ivy League) first in the conference this season and the first in their last four games. "We're psyched because we needed an Ivy win," Penn assistant coach Donna Mulhern said. "We were 0-2 in the Ivy League before this, and any win in the Ivies is a good win. But we weren't too thrilled with the way we played. It was a little sloppy compared to how we played against Temple. Even though we didn't win against Temple, we played really well as a team, which is what we had hoped to do for the whole time today." The only score of the game came late in the contest. Penn was able to keep a penalty corner in the circle long enough for junior forward Tara Childs to send the ball to the back of the cage with nine minutes, 39 seconds left to play. "We finally did what we had to do at the end, which is keep the ball down in our end and give ourselves a good chance to score," Mulhern said. "The goal was a good job by our offense. Both Amy Meehan and Tara did a good job of keeping their sticks down in the circle. Once you're in there, you don't have much time to react to the ball." The goal was assisted by Meehan, her second of the season. Although the outcome was a win, the young Quakers have been struggling with consistency. After an opening day win the Quakers followed with two three-game losing streaks split by a three-game winning streak. "We need to improve before we think about our standing in the Ivy League," Kelly said. "We need to work on consistency." Another area of concern has been scoring. "We had plenty of opportunities, we just didn't capitalize," Penn midfielder Emily Hansel said. "We need to work on our scoring." "We had plenty of opportunities in the first half, we just didn't score, and that was a major problem," Kelly echoed. Although the Quakers won by only one goal, they controlled most of the action. "I think, in general, we were the better team," Mulhern said. "I don't necessarily think we played the way that we should have. We had a lot of chances, and we also gave up a lot." After a somewhat disappointing game, Penn still came away with an Ivy victory and is looking forward to a its next chance to improve. "We're psyched about our first Ivy win, and we're planning on winning the rest," Hansel said.