Magical ride ends for W. Lax

This year the Penn women's lacrosse team earned its first ever Final Four berth, achieved its highest national ranking and went undefeated in the Ivy League for the first time.

So it wasn't unexpected that the team would end the season on another historic note.

But no one was expecting this kind of note.

En route to a 12-2 trouncing at the hands of No. 1 seed Northwestern in Friday's semifinal matchup at Franklin Field, the No. 4 Quakers (16-2) set an NCAA record for the longest scoring drought to open a national semifinal. A 43:31 minute scoreless run only ended with senior tri-captain Chrissy Muller's goal at the 16:29 mark in the second half. In the same time frame, the Wildcats (20-1) scored 10 goals, including eight in the first half.

Northwestern would go on to win its third Nationl Title in as many years by beating out a fiesty Virginia team, 15-13, on Sunday. The Cavilers scored 11 goals in the second half during comeback win over Duke on Friday to earn the right to play for the title.

Ironically, the Quakers themselves didn't feel like they played that poorly, just that Northwestern played superbly.

"I think overall our defense played very well," senior defender and tri-captain Karen Jann said. "I'm very proud of our defense."

Penn coach Karin Brower agreed that the defense played better than the score would suggest.

"We stripped them more than they're usually stripped," she said. "But going into halftime down 8-0, it's tough on a team like this."

The Quakers held their ground, allowing only one goal in the first 12 minutes of the game. But then Northwestern struck, scoring six goals in an eight minute span.

So if the team played solid defense, what did them in?

"When [Northwestern] spread it out, I think we got sucked out of our defense," Jann said. "We got pulled out more than our normal defense [does]."

In addition to the Wildcats' spread offense, the Quakers' woes were worsened by poor finishing on the offensive side.

"We beat ourselves," Muller, an attacker, said. "We took a lot of shots but we didn't finish them. I think if we had finished more shots it would have been a totally different game."

In fact, the Quakers were only outshot by one, 21-20.

Despite the lopsided loss, Brower still was pleased of her team's performance this year.

"I think we've come a long, long way," she said. "I'm really proud we made it here. It's a dream come to true to play in the Final Four. But Northwestern is a great team and they deserved to win."

Even though Northwestern had won the last two championships, had been ranked No. 1 for the majority of the year, and had given Penn its only loss earlier in the year, Wildcats Coach Kelly Amonte Hiller was surprised at the unevenness of the game.

"Coming in we knew Penn was a great team," she said. "We knew that they played every game tough . They know how to win a lot of different ways. We wanted to try and chip away at them, and we were pleased we were able to get up on them early."

The Wildcats made some history of their own. With a hat trick, senior Kristen Kjellman set a new record for most career goals scored in NCAA tournament games with 38 goals. The previous record, held by Jen Adams of Maryland, was 37.

Despite this accomplishment, "I'm just focused on the win," Kjellman said after the game. "We're going to celebrate this tonight, but then start to focus tomorrow for [the championship game]."

In addition to Kjellman's hat trick, the Wildcats were led by senior attacker Aly Josephs and her five goals as well as three points from sophomore attacker Hillary Bowen.

Although all of the Penn senior captains were emotional after the loss, they believe they've set the bar for next year's squad to make it to the Sunday night finale.

"We came into this program our freshmen year with Karin instilling the belief in us that we could win a national championship," Sarah Eastburn, the third senior tri-captain said. "We've worked incredibly hard for four years to accomplish that goal. This is the next step. We obviously are very disappointed, but next year they're just going to take it one more step, and we know they will."

Considering the Quakers have a highly touted freshmen class coming in, Eastburn's prophetic words just might come true.

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