W. Lax: Early decision: Quakers romp to Ivy title

If only every Penn-Princeton game went this way.

Playing against its archrival, the women's lacrosse team won at least a share of its first Ivy League Championship since 1982, beating the No. 15 Tigers 14-10 during Senior Night at Franklin Field. The Quakers can win the league outright with a victory over Brown on Saturday.

The win, the first over the Tigers (6-5, 2-2) in 14 years, gave the No. 3 Quakers (12-1, 6-0) their first NCAA tournament bid since 1984. They would hold the tiebreaker over second-place Yale.

"It's so awesome," senior tri-captain Chrissy Muller said. "It's surreal to beat them and matchup with them in a game like that, and to win [the league] against them."

The Quakers are the first team in Division I to earn a bid to the 16-team tournament. Barring a large drop in the rankings, the Quakers will most likely host a first-round game on May 13.

The clinching victory over the

Tigers was just another historic win in what is now officially the team's best regular season ever.

So far this year the Quakers have beaten current No. 13 Johns Hopkins for the first time ever, No. 17 Dartmouth for the first time in 16 years, and now Princeton for the first time in 14 years. Their 12 total wins are the most ever for the regular season, and tied for most all-time. Finally, the No. 3 ranking is the highest ever.

"They believe in themselves this year," Penn coach Karin Brower said. "They're on a mission."

The Quakers took the first steps early on, scoring three goals within the first six minutes of the game, causing Princeton coach Chris Sailer to call an early timeout. The Tigers took away some of that momentum, scoring four goals in the half. But the Quakers ended the opening frame strong, scoring their ninth goal five seconds before the intermission.

In part, Penn had the solid play of the Quakers' double-teams on defense to thank for a five-goal halftime lead.

"I thought [the double-teams] did a good job," Brower said. "They had some nice stops at the end of the game, especially against [Princeton midfielder Katie Lewis-Lamonica]. Hilary [Renna] did a good job on her. They forced her into a bad shot causing a turnover."

On offense, sophomore attacker Becca Edwards led the Quakers with five goals, despite injuring her knee five seconds into the second half.

The Tigers cut the lead back to 13-10 with 3:28 remaining, but the Quakers did not panic.

"Obviously you don't like it when they start to come back," Edwards said, "but we were never worried. We're very confident in our abilities."

While Sailer did give credit to Penn, saying "they played hard throughout," she said her team doomed itself.

"We were able to cut the lead a number of times, but just weren't able to get over the hump because of too many mistakes."

For the ninth consecutive game and the twelfth out of thirteen, Brower and the Quakers didn't have to worry about that.

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