Sprint travels to Cornell

The Penn sprint football team takes on the Big Red tonight and hopes to remain undefeated. The Penn sprint football team's mission for a league title will take the Quakers to Cornell this weekend. Penn (3-0, 1-0 Collegiate Sprint Football League) will take on the Big Red (2-2, 1-1) tonight at Schoellkopf Field in a rematch of the first game of the season, which the Quakers won 41-0. The biggest challenge for Penn may be to keep its focus on this game rather than looking ahead to next week's matchup against Army. "This isn't the biggest game of the year for us, but it's the most crucial to set up the [Army game]," Penn noseguard Steve Schickram said. Penn hopes to remain undefeated in order to set up a showdown with undefeated Army for CSFL supremacy. "We have to beat Cornell, or the rest of the games become meaningless," Penn coach Bill Wagner said. Penn will not be facing the same Cornell team that it faced in the first week of the season. Instead of playing at Franklin Field, the Quakers will be making the five-hour trip to Ithaca, N.Y., to take on a team that has many reasons to win. The Big Red are still contenders for a league title with only one league loss, but they must beat Penn to keep championship hopes alive. Cornell would also like to avenge the embarrassing loss it suffered at the hands of the Quakers earlier in the season. Since that game, the Big Red have recruited players and improved their team as a whole. They beat Navy 17-14 -- the same score as Penn's victory over the Midshipmen -- and they played a close game against Army last week. Cornell may have the home field and revenge in its favor, but the Quakers have momentum. Penn is off to its best start in its 64-year history and is coming off a huge win against Navy, something it has not done in nine years. The players know that they are capable of shutting this team out, and they have confidence in their powerful running attack. The last time these teams met, Penn running backs Tim Ortman and Chris Wright combined for 396 yards and five touchdowns. The Quakers hope they can repeat the performance tomorrow. "If we can dominate the line of scrimmage, Tim can find the holes and we'll take it to the [endzone]," Penn senior offensive lineman Howie Goldberg said. Penn will continue to run the ball against a Cornell defense which gave up 429 rushing yards to the Quakers in their last contest. But the Quakers have also brushed up their passing game in practice this week in an attempt to balance the offensive attack. Defensively, Penn is expecting Cornell to run the ball to set up the long pass. The Quakers held the Big Red to 275 total yards last game, and they hope to have similar numbers tonight. Penn does not want to look past the Big Red, but they would like to send a powerful message to Army, the only other undefeated team in the league. According to Wagner, the Quakers are not going to travel five hours to Cornell to lose. Wagner said if the Quakers can stay focused on tonight's game, they have the potential to repeat the 41-0 drubbing. After Cornell, the final two games of the Quakers' season will be played in the friendly confines of Franklin Field. If they beat Cornell, they have the potential to clinch their first league title in two years at home.