Quakers can't keep dream alive

This year the Penn women's lacrosse team earned its first Final Four berth, achieved its highest national ranking ever 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, laying a 43-minute-plus goose egg on the board.

The scoreless run only ended with senior attacker and tri-captain Chrissy Muller scored 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.

However, the Quakers 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.

Penn coach Karin Brower agreed that the defense played better than the score would suggest, and pointed out that they forced 15 Wildcats turnovers - well above their season average.

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

"When [Northwestern] spread [its offense] out, I think we got sucked out of our defense," Jann said.

Poor finishing exacerbated Penn's troubles.

"We beat ourselves," Muller 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."

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

"I'm really proud we made it here," she said. "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 was the two-time defending champion, and had dealt Penn its only loss earlier in the year, Wildcats Coach Kelly Amonte Hiller was surprised by 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.

Despite this accomplishment Kjellman said she was just thinking of her team's win and that preparation for the championship game was her priority.

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 final.

"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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