Field Hockey tries to get a win for Jenkins

As the Quakers prepare to face Penn State today, senior defender Brooke Jenkins will undergo ACL surgery. Throughout her Penn athletic career, Brooke Jenkins has given a lot to her teams. Now one of her teams will try to give something back to her. Penn field hockey senior defender Jenkins, who also plays lacrosse for the Quakers, will undergo surgery tomorrow to repair her left ACL, which she tore against Stanford on October 15. Her field hockey teammates want to give her what would easily be the biggest win of the season when they face fourth-ranked Penn State tonight at 7 p.m. in University Park. Jenkins, who has torn her right ACL twice, is sorely missed by her teammates both on and off the field. She plans to return in the spring for the Penn women's lacrosse team's 2000 campaign. "It's hard both as a friend and a teammate to see her go through this, but I think she's been an inspiration to the team in terms of how hard she works," Penn senior forward Leah Bills said, referring to Jenkins' desire to come back by the spring. "She just gets up and keeps going.? This one's going to be for her." While junior defender Lauren Cornew has performed admirably at the sweeper position in place of Jenkins, the Quakers, who have given up eight goals in their last two games, have not dealt well with the loss of their co-captain and her leadership on defense. This could present a problem against high-powered Penn State, which beat 11th-ranked Ohio State Sunday by the resounding score of 4-1. As Bills points out, it is up to the offense to help the defense by giving it a cushion, something it has not had often this season. "If we can generate a lead or some good offensive hustle, I think everyone will pick up their play [defensively]," Bills said. Penn's much-maligned offense seemed to have solved such problems when it scored four goals October 17 against Bucknell and three in a tough one-goal loss to Temple last Wednesday. "Once we got a couple goals, everyone was goal-crazy," Bills said of the two games. "Once we hit the 25 [yard line], everyone was just looking to score." Looking was almost all the Quakers did last Saturday, as they managed to get only one goal against a Brown team which is much stronger than the two against which Penn experienced their recent offensive renaissance. It gets no easier heading into the proverbial "lions' den" that is University Park. Penn State, which trumped Penn 6-0 last year, is 14-3, including a 7-1 shellacking of Temple on September 21. Thus, Penn knows that a return of the scoring touch which it tasted so briefly last week is vital should it hope to keep pace with the Nittany Lions. "[Tonight] we're not going to have very many opportunities, so we need every single one we get," Bills said. "It's got to be either a corner or a goal. Nothing in between." Penn hopes that a good game tonight will slingshot it into its final three games and the off-season on an up note. "Playing against a team like Penn State, it can't hurt you," Penn senior midfielder Maureen Flynn said. "You may not come out on top but you'll learn so much because you're playing a team that's so good." Not that the Quakers aren't relishing the opportunity to upset a national power. "[A win] would definitely make my senior year," Bills said.