A half hour after Sunday's heartbreaking 2-1 loss to Yale, the decision as to who scored the lone goal for the Penn field hockey team was still an open one.
At first, the game announcers gave the goal to sophomore Kristen Gray, who apparently scored off a perfect setup from junior Sara Shelley off a penalty corner to tie the game at 1-1 with four and a half minutes to play.
After the game was over, however, the coaches decided to credit the goal to junior Liz Lorelli, and her 16th tally of the year put her one past Penn's all-time record for goals in a season.
"I was discussing the goal with a friend and one of the coaches overheard," Lorelli said. "They decided to give me the goal."
With the goal, Lorelli broke Penn's goals in a season record (15) and tied Penn's points in a season record (35), both of which were held by former Quakers star Nicky Hitchens. Lisa Romig also had 15 goals in a season in 1978.
All of the scoring in the game occurred with less than 15 minutes remaining in regulation.
The Elis (8-6, 3-2 Ivy) broke a scoreless tie in the second half when senior Fran Gardner sneaked a shot past Penn (9-5, 3-2) goalie Elizabeth Schlossberg off a pass from junior Chrissy Hall.
After the Quakers failed to convert several close opportunities, Penn coach Val Cloud called a timeout with five minutes to play.
"I basically told them we could get back in this game," Cloud said. "We needed possession passes, not just hitting, and we needed to get corners."
The Quakers responded, with senior Marianne Rogers forcing one of Penn's four corners with under five minutes to play.
Sophomore Cara Calahan passed it in to Shelley, who waited a split second for the Yale defenders to commit before passing it to Gray.
"I saw [Yale's] two flyers come out," Gray said. "Sara took an extra second and pushed the ball perfectly to me."
To most observers it seemed that Gray's shot traveled straight through the legs of Yale goalie Krissy Nesburg. However, it was actually Lorelli who stuck her stick in front of the ball's path to deflect the shot into the cage.
"I deflected it just enough to confuse the goalie as to where the ball was going," Lorelli said. "But Kristen had a great shot setup from the corner."
The Elis, however, marched down the field and retook the lead off an unassisted goal by senior Jana Halfon one minute later.
Yale's forwards kept up the offensive pressure, forcing three of the Elis' eight penalty corners in the final four minutes to preserve the 2-1 lead until the horn sounded.
"It was a disappointing finish," Cloud said. "We played well but we gave up too many corners at the end; we couldn't finish them off."
The loss snapped the Quakers' seven-game winning streak, as they fell one game short of the program record for consecutive wins set in 1988.
The loss also moved Yale into a third-place tie with the Quakers in the Ivy League standings. Penn will have to wait until next weekend's game at Brown to try to clinch its second winning season in the Ivies in the last three years.
