W. Lax heads to Happy Valley with win streak

The Penn women's lacrosse team will look to continue its torrid play of late when the Quakers travel to Happy Valley to challenge a highly touted Penn State team today.

Penn has won its last three games by a combined score of 42-10. The Quakers have improved their overall record to a respectable 5-7 and evened their Ivy League record at two.

The recent hot play has put Penn back into the race for the Ancient Eight title and the team, as well as its coaches, are citing the much improved first-half efforts as the reason for success.

"With all the games that we've won, we have done a really good job of playing our game in the first half," Penn coach Karin Brower said. "We didn't come out strong against Harvard. I think that we came into that game thinking we could win, and that won't be the case against Penn State. We need to have a strong first half. That will be a key."

The Red and Blue have also made drastic improvements with their shooting.

"I think we are taking better shots now than we were earlier in the season," senior co-captain Whitney Horton said. "It's improved a lot, and we just need to keep practicing."

Brower also applauded the recent work ethic of the players and the time they have spent practicing their shooting.

"There are definitely more kids that are working on [their shooting] and I'm glad that they are," Brower said. "It's really just a shame it took three quarters of the year to start to turn it around, but there has been definite improvement."

With an important league game scheduled for this weekend against the current Ivy top-seed Dartmouth -- the Big Green are 5-0 in Ivy play -- today's contest could easily be overlooked by the Penn team. However, the Quakers insist that their number one priority are the Nittany Lions.

"Even though this isn't a league game, we are all still looking at this as a big game," Horton said. "We see this game as a pretty intense local rivalry, and we really want to come out with a victory."

A focused and determined attitude will be necessary if the Quakers want to entertain thoughts of an upset against either team this week.

Penn State is currently ranked No. 10 in the nation by Intercollegiate Women's Lacrosse Coaches Association and were recently handed a pair of one-goal losses, 15-14 and 11-10, by the two best teams in the nation, Loyola and Maryland, respectively.

If Penn wants to continue its current winning streak, the team will need solid efforts from all areas.

"Penn State is a very quick team, just like Dartmouth and Princeton, so we are going to have to slow them down, maybe drop our midfielders back," Brower said.

"We will also be facing much better goaltending over these next few games, but we need to just find open space and do the things that we have been doing. I think we can score on Penn State, and if we do, I think we have a good chance."

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