Early woes continue to hurt W. Lax

(Penn - 8, Cornell 9)

The Penn women's lacrosse team failed again to put together a complete game last weekend.

The Quakers lost, 9-8, to No. 9 Cornell in the last minute of play after going into halftime trailing, 5-1.

The loss continues Penn's woes in the Ivy League. They are now 0-2 in the Ancient Eight and 2-3 overall.

Incomplete games have been a problem for the Quakers recently.

In Penn's last game against Temple, a 12-8 loss, the Quakers struggled in the second half, outscored, 6-3, after going into halftime trailing by one.

And that loss came four days after a slow start sunk the Red and Blue against Ivy foe, Yale.

"I don't think we've been starting slowly for any particular reason," freshman midfielder Katie Spofford said. "We always come back and outscore them in the second half. We've just usually been behind by too much in the first half."

The Quakers' two victories have come after strong starts. In their 9-8 quadruple overtime upset of James Madison, Penn played two hard-fought halves to force the game into overtime.

Against Lafayette, the Quakers jumped out to a 7-3 halftime lead and never looked back, cruising to a convincing 14-5 victory.

The Quakers recognized the need to get out of the gate quickly against the Big Red, but failed to capitalize on their goal.

"We've been getting off to a slow start almost every game this year," junior attacker Kate Murray said. "We knew we couldn't get ourselves into a big hole against Cornell like we did against Yale."

Still, the Quakers were unable to keep themselves from falling into another deep hole, struggling throughout the first half.

Walking off the field trailing by four goals, Penn had a fair amount of adjusting to do.

"We had to go back to the basics to figure out what was going wrong," Spofford said. "We tried to fix the little things to bring the defense and attack together."

The Quakers stormed onto the field in the second half, wielding a never-say-die attitude and scoring two goals to draw themselves within two of the Big Red.

Eventually the Quakers evened the score at six to setup a rollercoaster conclusion to the game, as the two teams scored four goals in the last four minutes of the game.

Junior attacker Alison Polk-Williams scored the Quakers' eighth goal, tying the score with one minute remaining in the game.

After losing the draw, Penn was forced to defend the tie for the final minute. The Big Red proved too strong, however, as senior Sarah Fischer scored the game-winning goal for Cornell with only 32 seconds remaining.

Penn will not have a chance to rest. The Quakers will travel to Baltimore tomorrow to take on national powerhouse Loyola, who is ranked No. 4 in the nation.

Again, the Quakers will enter the game as a heavy underdog. The Red and Blue are pinning their upset hopes on being able to kick their early game ills and get out to a fast start agaist Loyola. This effort is a form the Quakers will strive to maintain throughout the entire game.

"We need to go out strong from the beginning," Spofford said. "We can't start slowly because they are such a strong team."

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