Field Hockey loses to Penn St.

Penn's Maureen Flynn was injured in the game and did not return. The Penn field hockey team (7-7) not only left Franklin Field on Wednesday night with a 6-0 defeat at the hands of the 7th-ranked Penn State Lady Lions (14-4), but also knowing that their best player may be out for the rest of the season. With 20:36 to play in the second half, Quakers forward and tri-captain Maureen Flynn fell down hard on the artificial turf and had to be helped off the field. Flynn did not return for the remainder of the game. "I don't know what it is, but I definitely heard it pop," Flynn said referring to her knee. The Quakers will miss Flynn's vital leadership, as well as the scoring she brings. With 20 points thus far this season, she is the team's leading scorer. It is still unknown exactly how long Flynn, the Ivy League Player of the Week two weeks ago, will be out for. The outlook was less than optimistic as she sat on a table with a bag of ice wrapped around her knee. "It's definitely her knee. We just don't know how serious it is yet," Coach Val Cloud said. "I don't know if she'll be playing in the next game [versus Yale] or not." While Flynn's injury will change the course of the rest of the season, it had no bearing on last night's outcome. Starting with Dawn Lammey's unassisted goal at 14:19 in the first half, the Lady Lions offensive attack rarely let up. Penn State's Tracy Larson, assisted by Maegan Galie at 8:14, and Heather Gorlaski, assisted by Larson at 6:27, each added goals of their own to push the Lady Lions' lead to 3-0. "We didn't pressure them when they were open for a shot," freshman midfielder Nicole Battiste said. "We left them wide open in front of the goal." Lammey struck again with 1:36 left in the first half, scoring another unassisted goal. It was Penn State's fourth of the night and Lammey's 18th of the season, a total that places her sixth in the nation in goals. "I mean if you just look at the stats, everyone on that team is scoring. It's not just one or two people who are doing it," Cloud said. "If you take our top one or two players, they could match up, but Penn State has so many great players and even on the bench too." Unfortunately the Lady Lions' scoring binge was not slowed down at all by the halftime intermission. They picked up right where they left off early in the second half when Galie's unassisted goal hit the back of the net at 32:02. "Penn State has a really nice team," Cloud said. "They play a style of game we're aspiring to, passing and always moving the ball." With most of the game spent in Penn State's offensive zone, the busiest player on the field all night was definitely Penn's senior goalkeeper Sarah Dunn. She faced a total of 32 shots compared to the five faced by Penn State's goalkeeper, only one of which came in the first half. "We had a lot of trouble finishing off our plays tonight," sophomore defender Amna Nawaz said. "We tried to hold them off on defense, and when we tried to get it out, we couldn't quite finish each play. There were some mental lapses tonight. Maybe we were intimidated more than we wanted to admit." The Quakers were able to mount a late offensive surge that resulted in four shots on goal, three of them by sophomore midfielder Aviva Meerschwam, although none were able to find the back of the net. "We were just outmanned tonight. You got the best kids in Pennsylvania playing on that team," Cloud said. "We just can't match up, athletically or skill wise."