W. Lax routed by Big Red on road

After scoring the game's first goal, the Quakers struggled mightily. Tell any member of the Penn women's lacrosse team that spring is in the air, and she might argue with you. Despite the near-spring temperatures, the Quakers succumbed to a snowball effect over the weekend. After Brooke Jenkins' goal eight minutes and eight seconds into the first half gave Penn a 1-0 lead over Cornell, the Quakers held the Big Red scoreless for another six minutes until Ginny Miles put their first goal on the board to tie the game. That goal started an onslaught of seven straight goals for Cornell before the halftime buzzer finally stopped the Big Red attack. Well, stalled it anyway. Even though Penn came out of the locker room and quadrupled its first half production with another goal by Jenkins and one each from Christy Bennett, Traci Marabella and Jayme Munnelly, Cornell doubled that number and scored eight more goals en route to a 15-5 victory. Jaimee Reynolds scored four Big Red goals while Miles, Erica Holveck and Katie McCorry each chipped in three apiece. "We couldn't get ourselves out of the hole," Penn coach Karin Brower said. "There was no leadership to calm the attack or make the defense pressure hard." One person Brower normally looks to when her young team needs direction is Jenkins, who captains the Quakers. "It was definitely frustrating because [Brower] expects us to be leaders and tell the freshmen what to do, but everyone got so down and stopped playing hard," Jenkins said. "We just kept making the same mistakes over and over." According to Munnelly, impatience and poor decision-making plagued the Quakers' offense all afternoon. "I was rushed and nervous," Munnelly said. "I felt like my head wasn't there." Brower said that much of her squad suffered from the same ailment. Instead of executing set plays and passing through Cornell's trapping defense, Penn (2-2, 0-2 Ivy League) tried to run with the ball, which resulted in many turnovers and dropped balls. "After the first five minutes we didn't run a play the entire game," Brower said. "We weren't working as a team. Instead of helping each other get into the open space, we would stand there thinking, 'I'll watch her go to goal and see if she can get through three people.'" But Brower said she understood where many of these tendencies might have started. Penn's attackers have been successful in running through double teams during previous wins over slower opponents American and Villanova. "The fast midfielders are used to being able to run down the field and beat their opponents," Jenkins said. "They weren't able to adjust to Cornell's quickness." When Brower felt the game slipping out of reach, she called a timeout and encouraged her team to pass in the midfield and run the plays correctly. But when play resumed, the Quakers continued to make the same mistakes, despite her instructions. "Karin is really good under pressure," Munnelly said. "She told us to stay calm and control the ball, but we did the opposite." The Quakers' determination to run the ball was not the only deviation from Brower's game plan. After watching Cornell (5-0, 1-0) play Rutgers on film, she noticed the Scarlet Knights had better luck against goalkeeper Carrie Giancola when they shot the ball high. But after Brower shared her knowledge with the Quakers, they still shot the ball low, giving Giancola an easier time. Brower tried to frame the loss positively, calling it an eye-opener for her young team. It definitely made an impression on Munnelly. "We're going to use it as a stepping stone," Munnelly said. "We didn't play our game. That's not what we're going to be this year."

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