Last weekend brought a storm of Green and Crimson that knocked the Penn women's basketball squad off its Ivy title course.
Now, the team is looking to get back on its feet.
The Quakers (10-8, 3-2 Ivy) are aiming for a weekend sweep as they depart for New York. They will first face Columbia (10-9, 3-3) in Manhattan on Friday night and then travel to Ithaca where Cornell (2-17, 0-6) awaits.
In the final meeting between the Quakers and Lions last season, Penn fell 74-69. Despite this setback the Red and Blue still went on to win the Ivy crown.
With similar overall records this season, though, both teams find themselves in the middle of the Ivy pack. And now both are looking to improve their league standing.
The Lions are coming off a win against Yale and a loss to Brown last weekend, their first games under acting head coach Tory Verdi, who replaced Traci Waites after Waites' sudden resignation last Tuesday.
"Columbia likes to run a lot of four-out, one-in, so they like to just drive," said guard Joey Rhoads, who scored a career high 17 points in 11 minutes during the Quakers final matchup with the Lions last season.
"It is their guards that score more than a big inside presence, so we just need to make sure we move our feet and keep them from driving," the sophomore added.
Without an Ivy win this season, Cornell is hoping for its first conference victory this Saturday. But history will be going against the Big Red -- the Quakers have won the last five encounters between the two teams.
"Cornell doesn't have the best record, but we know from experience that even if they are in the last place in the Ivy League it doesn't mean anything," Rhoads said.
As they take to the road this weekend the Quakers will try to erase the painful memories still stemming from losses to Harvard (12-6, 4-1) and Dartmouth (9-8, 5-0) last weekend. The games, which Penn lost by a combined five points, put a large dent in their dream of a perfect season.
Cognizant of the importance of each win, the Red and Blue hope that consecutive victories this weekend will bring them closer to reclaiming a spot at the top of the conference.
Penn suffered its first Ivy League loss of the year last Friday night, when it fell to the Crimson 54-51. The Quakers shot just 34.5 percent from the field and 33.3 percent from behind the arc against Harvard.
Struggling on offense, the team consistently ran down the shot clock and finished possessions without a shot attempt.
Penn returned to the Palestra the next night, rested and determined to bounce back. Still, they could not overtake the Big Green, who prevailed 73-71 on a late bucket by Elise Morrison.
The team has spent this week reflecting on the losses and trying to correct the mistakes that tipped the scale against their favor last weekend.
"We've been working especially on offense," Rhoads said. "I know we've had a lot of problems just getting shots off, it always comes down to the shot clock. We are trying to run all the options and then know what to do at the end of a shot clock situation."
But offense wasn't their only problem.
The Big Green and Crimson challenged Penn under its own basket, and the Quakers failed to retrieve key defensive rebounds.
"I think we just need to box out," Rhoads said. "We just need to make sure we stay persistent with our boxing out and don't lose our girls."
If improving their boxing out and other small corrections are the key to future victories, then the Quakers' hopes are high for a season that is not even halfway over.
"We know we can beat these teams," Rhoads said. "We just need to play together and stay positive. ... We just don't have any room for error now; we need to win our next few games."
