The ice water felt good.
Coaches Mike Dowd and Sara Schiffman and senior co-captain Ashley Lostritto got the celebratory bath on Saturday as Penn beat Columbia 7-0 to cap a perfect Ivy League season.
As the music glared and his players danced, a wet Coach Michael Dowd described the mood. "It's a tremendous feeling," he said. "At the beginning of the year it was our goal to win an Ivy League championship and get back to the NCAA tournament. Today we accomplished that goal."
"At the start of the season each player wrote down their goals for the year and winning the Ivy League title was on everyone's piece of paper," Lostritto said.
The Quakers trounced Cornell 6-1 on Friday to guarantee at least part of the title. There was no intensity lost after the banner was in hand. "We wanted to go undefeated," Lauren Sadaka said. "This title was ours and we didn't want to share it with anyone."
Sadaka won both her matches to cap off a 15-0 record for the spring season. Individual triumphs are not the nature of this team but a perfect singles season is hard to ignore.
"I just tried to take it each match one by one," Sadaka said. "When I got to 10-0 it became more real. I was 13-0 coming into this weekend and just said to myself 'I want to do this, I want to get to 15-0'."
Sadaka was so dominant that she never went to a third set all year. "She is relentless out there," Dowd said. "She doesn't give away any points. She doesn't have bad days. That's why you can have a player go 15-0."
Ekaterina Kosminskaya won both her No. 1 singles matches leaving her a perfect 7-0 for the Ivy league season.
Saturday will be remembered not only for the championship but also for Lostritto's Ivy League debut. The senior captain rarely cracks the starting lineup but she started at No. 6 singles against the Lions. Lostritto did not disappoint, demolishing her opponent 6-0, 6-0.
"Ashley has been a huge part of this program," Dowd said. "She has been a mentor, coach, friend and leader to all these players. She would probably be a starter for many Ivy teams. She went out and proved that today without surrendering a game."
The whole team was energized to see Lostritto in the lineup in her final home match. "We wanted this so much for Ashley," fellow captain Yulia Rivelis said. "She played wonderfully."
"Going out on the court and winning 0 and 0 and taking home the championship. I don't think I could have asked for a better way to leave this great program," Lostritto said.
