With a 6-1 lead by the middle of the first half against Cornell, it seemed as though the Penn women's lacrosse team would cruise to its fifth win.
Then the hibernating Big Red awoke.
Cornell countered the Quakers' fast start, forcing a complete reversal of game dynamics and handing Penn its first Ivy League loss, 12-10, Friday night.
Senior Allie Juras scored first for the Quakers (4-2, 1-1 Ivy), ranked 14th in the nation, with a goal off a free position shot just over two minutes into the game. Freshman Allison Ambrozy and seniors Emily Cochran and Katie Spofford each added a goal to give Penn a four-goal lead before the Big Red could put even a dent in Penn's defense.
Cornell's Allison Schindler finally put her team on the board nine minutes into the game, but Penn sophomore Chrissy Muller and junior Ali Ryan responded with a goal each. Spirits ran high and Penn seemed headed for its second conference victory.
But Cornell was not ready to give in just yet.
The Big Red (3-2, 1-0) reclaimed control of the game, pounding the Quakers defense and completely silencing Penn's offense. With 16 minutes remaining in the first, Cornell put the ball past goalie Liz Lorelli.
One goal turned into two, and then three. A struggling Penn squad watched helplessly as their lead slipped away. Penn coach Karin Brower sent in junior goalie Karrie Moore to try and stop the bleeding, hoping a change in the cage might disrupt Cornell's run.
But each point added fuel to the enlivened Cornell squad; after every goal the Big Red bench huddled together cheering, their sticks hoisted above their heads in triumph as they inched closer and closer to a comeback.
Seven unanswered goals later, the Big Red led the Quakers 8-6, and the first half was finally over.
"They had a momentum change and they came back from a big deficit," Brower said. "And you have to give them credit for coming out hard and fighting us like they did."
The second half seemed only to confirm what had just transpired. Cochran, Spofford, Ryan and freshman Rachael Manson each added a goal for Penn.
But Cornell stifled all of the Quakers' attempts to regain the lead. Schindler answered each Penn goal with one of her own, accumulating four in the second half to tally six goals for the night.
"We are definitely disappointed," Brower said. "We had a great start, and our attack was better this game than we have been pretty much all season.
"I think that defensively we sort of fell apart. We struggled in the goal cage a little bit and Karrie Moore did a good job coming in and making some big saves for us off of that. "
According to senior Katie Miller, an early lead mistakenly allowed the Red and Blue to relax a little too early.
"We got complacent and we didn't try to keep the lead that we had," Miller said. "And then when they started to come back we got nervous. We didn't play the way we usually play."
But Brower expressed a different view of Cornell's comeback.
"It wasn't like our attack got the ball and just sort of relaxed, it wasn't like that at all. We just couldn't get that draw, and they had the momentum, and we just couldn't make a stop defensively. So it wasn't at all like settling in and thinking we were going to win."
The Quakers all cited defensive holes as a prominent flaw Friday night -- and as a weakness to address before their next match at No. 12 Johns Hopkins tomorrow.
"It is just basic one v. one defense and basic things we have to work on with our attack, too," Miller said. "But I think it is one game, we still have the rest of our season ahead of us, and we just have to look forward, forget about our mistakes and move on."
Brower agreed.
"We have to move on," she said. "We have two days off and we come back [today] and we have a big game against Hopkins. Move forward. Grow from this, learn from it."
