Jenkins' return not enough to stop W. Lax skid

The Quakers fell 11-4 to Notre Dame, setting a team record with an 0-7 mark to open the year. Brooke Jenkins was supposed to be out for the season with a torn right ACL. But when the starting lineups were announced for the Penn women's lacrosse team's game with Notre Dame last night, Jenkins, sporting a huge knee brace, trotted onto the field with her teammates. Unfortunately for Penn, not even Jenkins' impressive recovery could stop the 1999 Quakers from becoming the first team in school history to start the season with seven losses, as they fell to the Irish, 11-4. "It's frustrating," Penn senior co-captain Jenni Leisman said. "I think we're just looking forward to improving ourselves every game and hopefully getting a win or two by the end of the season." One reason for Penn's slow start may be the uncertainty of its coaching situation. The players petitioned for the removal of coach Anne Sage last month. While assistant coach Alanna Wren has been leading the Quakers, the Penn Athletic Department has not commented on Sage's status. Not knowing what is happening with their coach gives the winless Quakers even more worries. While last night did not leave much for the Quakers (0-7) to smile about, Jenkins' return to action -- after missing Thursday's 15-1 loss at Temple -- did inspire some hope. Jenkins, who missed all of last season with a knee injury, has either a partial or full tear of her ACL but her doctor allowed her to decide if she could play. Jenkins underwent an MRI last Thursday but the results could not reveal the severity of the tear. After taking a strength test at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania yesterday, Jenkins -- who will need surgery to repair the tear -- decided to step onto the field. "It was fine," Jenkins said. "I just have to get used to the brace." And while the junior co-captain was becoming accustomed to the new hardware on her knee, the Quakers were becoming familiar with the Notre Dame attack. The Fighting Irish (6-2) controlled the ball for nearly the first 10 minutes of the game, racing to a 4-0 advantage. "One of our pre-game goals was to come out strong and I think we did that in the opening minutes," Notre Dame coach Tracy Coyne said. After Irish attacker Kerry Callahan netted her second consecutive goal with 22:03 left in the half, however, Penn began to come to life. The Quakers contained the Irish, holding them scoreless for 13 minutes, and started to cut into the lead. Freshman midfielder Emily Foote, a Daily Pennsylvanian sportswriter, opened the scoring for Penn at 13:32. After Penn gained possession at midfield, Foote found herself with only one defender to beat. "Notre Dame's defense was good, but not good one-on-one," Foote said. Spinning past the Irish defense, Foote deposited the ball in the cage and seemed to start a roll for the Quakers, as fellow freshman Jennifer Hartman followed with a goal of her own less than one minute later to make it 4-2 Notre Dame. The charge, though, soon came to a halt, as Callahan struck again with 8:03 remaining. The Irish attacker then registered her fourth score of the night three minutes later, and Notre Dame never looked back. "At that point, we felt [Penn] had a chance to gain momentum and get back in the game, so we wanted to stop the momentum right there," Callahan said. Holding an 8-3 lead at halftime, the Irish were clearly in control of the game and Penn was in the all-too-familiar role of having to play catch-up. While the second half did not see nearly as many Notre Dame goals, the Penn attack also ran out of gas, as freshman Traci Marabella scored the Quakers' only goal of the second 30 minutes with 9:31 remaining. "I think we got some shots on goal but poor placement on our shots did us in," Wren said. Wren told her players that Irish goalie Carrie Marshall's weakness was stopping shots at hip level, but the Quakers were still not able to get enough shots past Marshall. But Penn was not the only squad at Franklin Field with scoring troubles in the second half. After Notre Dame's leading scorer, Lael O'Shaughnessy, netted her second goal at 28:43, Penn held the Irish scoreless for more than 22 minutes. In fact, Penn held O'Shaughnessy scoreless for the rest of the evening, limiting her to half her average of nearly four tallies per game. "We were going to double-team [O'Shaughnessy] whenever she got the ball, and it was really effective," Wren said. "The defense did a nice job of implementing what we wanted to implement." But unfortunately for the Quakers, the defensive heroics were not enough to keep Penn from its worst start to a season in history.