Lorelli nets 18th goal of year in F. Hockey defeat

Heading into its last two games of the season, the Penn field hockey team knew that it had to win at least one of them to finish the season with a winning record in the Ancient Eight.

But at Brown this Saturday, the Quakers came up a goal short.

Junior Liz Lorelli continued her offensive dominance by scoring her 18th of the year, but Brown answered with two consecutive goals to defeat Penn, 2-1.

"We played with a lot of effort, but we just came up short at the end," Penn coach Val Cloud said. "We definitely had our chances."

With the win, the Bears (11-5, 4-2 Ivy) moved into a tie with Yale and Harvard for second place in the Ivy League, behind Princeton. The teams will play each other next week to finalize the standings.

The Quakers (10-6, 3-3), now in fifth place, will face the daunting task of defeating No. 8 Princeton on Friday as they try to finish with a winning record in and out of Ivy League play for the first time since 1995.

"I'm going to tell the team that they've got nothing to lose," Cloud said. "We've had a great season, and Princeton hasn't been unbeatable this year."

The 2003 Quakers have established themselves as the most successful Penn squad in eight years after compiling a seven-game winning streak against regional and Ivy League teams.

However, the Quakers could not defeat Yale and Brown -- two teams Penn had gone 3-1 against the previous two seasons.

At Brown, the Quakers missed several opportunities to tie the score in the second half, much as they did a week before against Yale when falling 2-1 on a late goal.

On Saturday, it was Brown senior Molly Carleton who picked up the rebound off a shot from senior Laurel Pierpont and blasted it past Penn goalie Elizabeth Schlossberg with 13 minutes to play, giving Brown the 2-1 advantage that the Bears would not relinquish.

"Both teams played with a lot of intensity in the second half," Penn senior co-captain Emily Farnesi said. "They got ahead on a push toward the cage and took advantage."

After Lorelli struck first for the Quakers on a breakaway just eight minutes into the match, the game seemed to be in Penn's hands.

Schlossberg performed well in front of Penn's cage. The rookie finished the game with a career- high 10 saves.

The freshman's play helped keep Penn in a game in which it was outshot, 16-9. Both of the Bears' goals came off of second-chance opportunities in front of the Quakers' net.

"Elizabeth said the second goal was really a battle that just went Brown's way," Cloud said. "Overall, our defense played well, but our offense could not come up with enough support."

Trailing 1-0, the Bears kept up pressure and eventually tied the game when Pierpont scored off a rebound midway through the first period.

In the second half, the Quakers failed to convert on five penalty corners, which, according to Farnesi, deflated the confidence of the team.

"When you're working so hard and just couldn't finish, you begin to have letdowns on both sides of the ball," Farnesi said. "Defensively, we had two letdowns, and [Brown] capitalized on both."

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