When senior attack Cara Calahan caught sight of teammate Lea Salese transitioning up the right side of Saint Joseph's field yesterday, she knew that the ball would eventually find her stick.
And then, Calahan knew, the ball would find the back of the Hawks' net to give Penn a 2-1 overtime victory over the Hawks.
"I knew Lea would get the ball to me on the right side and we would score and it would be easy," Calahan said.
The Quakers (2-1) used their right-sided strength to overcome a one-goal deficit, tying the score at 1-1 with under 10 minutes remaining in the second half, extending the game into overtime.
Three minutes later, Penn's second victory of the season was in the books.
The Hawks (2-1) opened the scoring early in the second half when they found their way past the Penn defense and senior goalie Liz Schlossberg, who had six saves against the Philadelphia City Six rivals.
St. Joe's continued to dominate, threatening to add another loss to the Quakers' record. For the Red and Blue, a repeat of Sunday's loss to Drexel, in which the Quakers failed to compete mentally, loomed just overhead.
That was, of course, until Salese found Calahan, Calahan found the back of the Hawks' goal and the entire Penn squad awoke.
"Up until our first goal we were playing very complacently," Calahan said. "But after our first goal we just said to ourselves 'we are in this and we are winning this game.'"
Calahan's goal proved to be just the trick to revitalize the struggling Red and Blue. The Quakers began to dominate play, holding their opponents scoreless and forcing the extra session.
It seemed that the confident, mentally prepared players that had so effortlessly defeated Rutgers in the season's opening match had returned. The Quakers continued to pound the Hawks, searching for a game-winning goal of their own.
"Talent wise everyone is going strong, we just have to step up our game mentally," said Schlossberg, who added that from her viewpoint behind the lineup the team seemed "very composed."
Penn found the opening it had been waiting for three minutes and 14 seconds into overtime play, when Salese scored the game-winning goal -- her third goal of the season -- on a penalty corner.
The team will look to continue its winning streak when it begins conference competition this Saturday at 2004 Ivy co-champion Harvard -- the only Ivy League team to beat the Quakers last year, denying them a trip to the NCAA Tournament.
PENN 0 1 1 -- 2St. Joe's 0 1 0 -- 1
Scoring: 1st Half -- None.
2nd Half -- 1, SJU, Luft 3 (Moody), 54:08; 2, PENN, Calahan 1 (Salese), 60:30.
Overtime -- 3, PENN, Salese 3, 73:14.
