The Penn women's lacrosse players could have easily been distracted by their surroundings on Saturday. The game against Yale was the Quakers first home match of the season and their conference opener.
But the team had only one thing in mind: a win.
"We knew we were going to do everything we could to get [the win]," senior Kate Miller said.
"We have wanted to beat Yale since we were freshmen."
And the Quakers did just that, topping the Elis, 8-7.
The game was tight all along, and when the referee awarded senior attacker Katie Spofford a free position shot with 11 seconds remaining in the game and the score at 7-7, spectators and players held their breath.
"I figured that was the only time in my career that I was going to be allowed to step and shoot," Spofford said.
"My coach hates when I do that, but, I figured that I might as well. I just ripped it."
The senior's shot sailed past Yale goalie Ellen Cameron to give the Quakers (3-1,1-0 Ivy) to a 8-7 lead. With less than ten seconds on the board, Yale (1-3, 0-1) could not recover. Penn could finally heal a wound that had plagued them for years.
"Two years ago when we played [Yale] on this home field we were losing by two or three, and they stalled for twenty-three minutes on us and won the game," Spofford said. "And ever since then we've had a bitter taste in our mouth and we'd do anything to win this game."
The Red and Blue seemed far from washing away that bad taste in the opening minutes of the first half, when the Elis scored two unanswered goals.
However, sophomore Chrissy Muller and senior Allie Juras each responded with a goal to tie the score, 2-2. Before the end of the half, Muller grabbed two more points, Spofford added a goal of her own and the Quakers went into halftime with the lead, 5-4.
"Our defense was not so hot in the first half and we just put an up-tempo pressure on them and they sort of fell apart with that," Penn coach Karin Brower said.
"It's not the type of defense I particularly like to play but it is the type we needed to play today."
The Elis remained neck and neck with the Quakers throughout the second half. Even with goals by sophomore Karen Jann and junior Ali Ryan, Penn could not break away from their opponents. Finally, a turnover forced by senior goalie Liz Lorelli with less than a minute left initiated a breakaway for the Red and Blue that resulted in Spofford's final goal.
"Liz Lorelli, our goalie, played phenomenally," Brower said.
"She just had some point blank saves and had that turnover in the end that let us to come down the other way ... I'm proud of them. They played with a lot of heart today and a lot of hustle."
The hard-fought victory was Penn's first over the Elis in more than 10 years.
"They play well usually against us and we have struggled in the past," Brower said.
By beating Yale, ranked 18th, the No. 19 Quakers not only began their Ivy League play with a win, but also buried their past. They still have the bulk of their season ahead of them, though, with more tough opponents on the horizon, including No. 2 Princeton and No. 10 Dartmouth.
"As we go forward we are getting better and better. We are fixing all the little things that were wrong in the beginning of the season," Miller said.
Penn will be able to continue its improvement tomorrow when Delaware visits Franklin Field at 4 p.m.
