Yes, the Penn field hockey team boasts a fair record of 3-3. And yes, the rumors are true: Penn is 0-2 in the Ivy League.
And, lastly, yes, head coach Val Cloud did describe the Quakers' situation in this dismal light: "We are in a hole now. The chances of us coming out of this are miraculous. We'd have to depend on other people to lose."
And maybe -- probably -- Cloud is right.
But the 3-3 record resonates on another level. It conjures thoughts of a team not so different from this year's Quakers, whose story may have started out quietly but has developed into a loud, attention-grabbing accomplishment.
Six games into its season, last year's Penn field hockey team, the eventual Ivy League co-champions, also had a 3-3 record.
So, can the 2005 Quakers escape from this hole they have dug for themselves?
With six games behind them, the 2004 team had defeated Saint Joseph's, Lafayette and Cornell. William & Mary, Virginia Commonwealth and Harvard had all handed the Red and Blue losses.
This year, Rutgers, St. Joe's and Lafayette suffered at the mercy of Penn's sticks. And the Quakers failed to overcome Drexel, Harvard and Cornell.
True, two losses this season thus far have been conference games, while the only Ivy League school that defeated Penn last year was Harvard. Though this holds significance in the race for the Ivy League title, a closer look at Penn's league losses -- and specifically at the disappointing outcome of the 2005 Harvard game -- reminds us that a "W" or "L" doesn't always fairly represent game dynamics.
Last season Harvard outscored the Quakers 3-1. The Crimson managed 13 shots, five more than Penn.
In contrast, the 2005 match-up of last season's conference co-champions was far less decisive. Harvard squeaked by 1-0, on a penalty stroke, in the last final minutes.
"It really was a bummer," Cloud said. "To be honest with you, we certainly could have beaten them."
Furthermore, at this exact moment last year, just between the sixth and seventh games of the 2004 season, the Quakers began a streak that would win them the Ivy title: Penn emerged victorious from its seventh game and every game after that right up to and including the deciding contest at Princeton.
With a brief hiatus from Ivy League and Philadelphia City 6 play today at No. 2 Maryland, the Quakers will struggle to match the Terrapins. But then Penn will jump right back into local and league competition with games against Villanova and Dartmouth.
And the Red and Blue has to hope for outcomes in Ivy League games that would distribute losses and perhaps offer some compensation for the team's errors against Harvard and Cornell.
Is this too much to hope for? Things certainly did work out for the 2004 Quakers, even starting with a 3-3 record. And this year, the team's progression "kind of reminds me of last year," said Cloud after last week's win against Lafayette.
"We keep building and building and building. We get thrown into competition so early on without much practice. It takes us a while to get going."
Maybe the season's slow start is a hole too deep for any team to emerge from. But maybe not. At least the Cinderella story of the 2004 Quakers seems to indicate otherwise.
Lily Katz is a sophomore English major from Scarsdale, N.Y. Her e-mail address is lnk@sas.upenn.edu.
