After two weeks without a game, the Penn field hockey team (2-4, 1-1 Ivy) will be back in action tomorrow, as Penn hosts Dartmouth in both team's third Ancient Eight game of the year.
Despite the layoff, Penn coach Val Cloud expects her team to bounce back.
"Thus far we've given them some extra time off, but the practices we've had this week have been very competitive," she said. "So I don't think they've lost their competitive edge. But it will be interesting since we haven't had a game in two weeks."
Senior co-captain Jamie Calahan agreed with her coach.
"This week has been really intense in practice," Calahan said. "We're ready to step on the field and play a game."
The Big Green (2-4, 1-1) also come into the game with a long layoff, as their previous game was a Sept. 16 loss to Boston University.
That loss was part of a three-game skid for Dartmouth, while the Quakers are coming off two consecutive victories.
But as history has indicated, this game could very well come down to the last seconds of regulation. Since 2001, the margin of victory in each game between these schools has been no larger than one goal. The Quakers are 4-2 in those six games.
After last year's 2-1 loss, the Quakers hope to get back on track - and have ambitions to blow Dartmouth out of the water.
"We always have motivation for Ivy games, but in particular, we lost on the road to Dartmouth last year in a really bad game," Calahan said. "We're looking to rectify that by killing them."
Last year the teams went over 30 minutes before the Big Green scored a goal at the 31:11 mark. Only 33 seconds later, the Big Green added another tally. Even though the Quakers outshot Dartmouth in the second half, Penn just couldn't score the equalizer, falling 2-1.
The Big Green return all of their starters from last season and only graduated one senior. But the Red and Blue will once more have to look out for senior forward Lizzie Bildner.
After leading her team in scoring the past two seasons, the Massachusetts native is at it again with four goals so far this year.
All things considered, Cloud is cautiously optimistic this year.
"I'm expecting a good game, like all of our Ivy games," Cloud said. "It's going to come down to who came to play. We've been scoring a lot of goals in practice, so hopefully we can keep that up during this weekend."
For the Quakers, who only average 1.5 goals a game, those extra practices between games will have to pay off this weekend.
