Stickers travel to Brown

Field Hockey should beat Brown, keeping its Ivy title hopes alives. Three. Two. One. And the Ivy League championship team is? Wait. Back up a few steps to number three and that is where you'll find the Penn field hockey team. At noon tomorrow on Brown University's turf, Penn (6-6 overall, 3-1 Ivy League) will play the first of its last three Ivy League games. Brown (5-5 overall before Wednesday's match with Holy Cross, 2-2) will be one of three determining factors that could bring the Quakers a championship title. Although Brown has consistently been a tough game for the Red and Blue in the past, the Bears will pose only a skirmish for the Quakers as opposed to the battles Penn will have to fight against its remaining two Ivy oppositions, Yale and Princeton. "Brown is key for us to win. If we get Brown then we can get Yale at home which will be a tougher game," Penn coach Val Cloud said. "Those wins will help us to go into the Princeton game." Penn who recently made headlines as it pulled into a second place tie with Harvard, needs to defeat both Brown and Yale to have a chance at a possible tie with Princeton for the league title. Before the Quakers look ahead to the title, however, they must concentrate on Brown. "We have everything going for us at this point," Cloud said. Starting the second half of its season with three consecutive wins --against Temple, Columbia and Pacific -- the Quakers proved that they are a team to be reckoned with. However, Penn couldn't keep a perfect second half sweep as they lost 5-1 to nationally ranked Maryland last Tuesday night. Courtney Martin scored the lone goal for the Quakers, who surprisingly looked at the loss not as a drawback to their season, but as a game from which they can grow. "We benefited from the loss to Maryland," tri-captain Maureen Flynn said. "Seeing how they played showed us what we need to improve on for Brown." Taking what they learned from Maryland and riding off their previous three wins, the Quakers should walk onto Brown's turf with the confidence to bring home a victory. "[Brown] is a game we have to play well in order to win," said sophomore Bess Freedlander, Penn's leading scorer. Brown, although not as competitive as Yale and Princeton, is currently ranked fourth in the Ivy League. The Bears' high ranking is in large part due to its playmaker, junior Kristen Getler, who took sole possession of Brown's career assist record as she hit No. 17 with an assist in Brown's game winning goal against Sacred Heart. Although the Bears have Getler, Penn has Freedlander, who had a hand in three goals last week, earning her honorable mention in the Ivy Players of the Week. Additionally, the Red and Blue outscored their opponents 13-2 and outshot them 76-20 in last week's games, excluding the loss to Maryland. With these numbers in mind, Penn is on its way. And the championship team is?