No Ivy crown for F. Hockey

There was a touching pregame tribute on Friday night honoring four Penn field hockey seniors playing their final game at Franklin Field.

Moments later, one of those seniors, forward Aparna Wilder, made another contribution to the Quakers, scoring a goal three minutes into Penn's game against Princeton.

The Penn faithful would do well to remember those first few minutes as opposed to the 70 that followed.

Seventh-ranked Princeton (15-2, 7-0 Ivy League) routed Penn (6-10, 4-2), 6-1, handing the Quakers their worst loss of the season. The Tigers clinched their eighth straight Ivy League title in the process.

"They're the best team we've faced," Penn coach Val Cloud said. "They've got talented people and control everywhere, not just the big scorer, everywhere."

The big scorer whom Cloud referred to was Tigers junior Ilvy Friebe, who has 29 goals on the season. She scored twice on Friday, the first of which came at 25:12 of the first half, offsetting the early momentum Penn had following its score.

"To score first and set the momentum was great," Penn senior co-captain Nikki Battiste said. "But they're a great team. They execute and they have a great offense."

It was all downhill for Penn following Friebe's equalizer, as Princeton scored 53 seconds later as part of a four-goal first-half explosion.

For context, Penn had allowed four goals in its first five Ivy League matches combined.

The Quakers had no better luck on offense, netting just two shots on goal the entire game.

"Our offense had a lot of difficulty penetrating Princeton's defense," Wilder said.

Friebe added another goal 28 seconds into the second half. Princeton junior Emily Townsend then closed the scoring by sending the ball through a throng of players past Penn sophomore goaltender Carrie Wilhelm just five minutes later.

Wilhelm made several acrobatic stops down the stretch to hold the Tigers at six tallies, as part of her nine saves in the game.

"[My players] played their guts out and came up to a team that was superior in every way," Cloud said.

Still, the loss did not cause the Quakers to lose sight of the great strides the team has made this past year. They were winless in the Ivies last year and this season went into the final weekend with a chance to be Ivy League Champions. Cloud acknowledged Penn's four seniors -- Maria Karas, Monique Horshaw, Battiste and Wilder -- for their efforts in orchestrating the turnaround.

"I credit the seniors for getting us where we are," Cloud said. "Not just with their play, but with their leadership and enthusiasm, because we could've fallen flat after the 0-5 start."

The loss drops the Quakers into a second-place tie with Harvard in the Ancient Eight standings, with the two to meet today to determine the runner-up.

"Harvard will seem easier after this," Battiste said. "But we're fighters, so they'll have to watch out."

Following Penn's struggles a year ago and this season's tough start, resiliency is one of the legacies that this senior class will leave.

"I'm over it now, I think we all are," Wilder said minutes after the match. "We're all psyched to go to Boston."

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