The last four times the women's lacrosse team faced Northwestern, the scores were 13-6, 17-8, 13-4 and 12-2 all in favor of the Wildcats.
But yesterday the No. 5 Quakers reversed three years of futility against Northwestern, earning a huge upset 11-7 over the Wildcats at Franklin Field.
How impressive was the upset for Penn (13-1, 7-0 Ivy)? No. 1 Northwestern came into the game undefeated at 15-0 and on a 36-game winning streak. It had also won the last three national championships, and had gone 92-5 since February 2004.
"To beat the national champion this late in the season is unbelievable," Penn coach Karin Brower said.
Not only was this the first loss for Northwestern since its 2007 season opener, but the four-goal deficit was the largest it faced this year, and the seven goals tied its season low set in a 7-6 win over Georgetown.
Northwestern coach Kelly Amonte Hiller graciously acknowledged that the Quakers outplayed her squad, although she seemed a little stunned after losing for the first time in 37 games.
"They played harder than we did, and they deserved to win," she said. "Penn deserves all the credit in the world."
But late in the first half, the win was anything but a given for Penn. With 2:35 remaining, Northwestern's Hilary Bowen scored her third goal of the half and 56th of the season. That capped a 3-0 Wildcats' run, and it looked like they might run away with this game, as they had in the past.
Penn's Allison Ambrozy scored with 37 seconds left to cut the gap to 7-5, but the Wildcats came storming right back. As the buzzer sounded, Bowen was decked from behind. The referees put one second back on the clock and awarded a free position shot, but Sarah Waxman made a low save, giving Penn a lift to end the half.
And the Quakers kept the momentum going after the break, when they did something nobody had done in over five years: shut the Wildcats out for a full 30-minute frame.
"To hold them scoreless in the second half is just unbelievable," Brower said. "They just have so many threats, but again and again we just came up with the draws."
The Quakers won five of seven second period draws, and Northwestern spent most of the half in its own third.
While the Penn defense was shutting down the Wildcats, the offense was doing its job to claw back and give the Red and Blue some separation.
Freshman Giulia Giordano scored both the go-ahead goal and the one that put the Quakers up by three. She finished with a hat trick and two assists, giving her a career-high five points.
Talking about her play, she said: "It was huge; it felt good. We work so well together on offense, and we just wanted it a lot more than they did."
Although this was Penn's first win over a No. 1-ranked team, some of Penn's upperclassmen didn't overstate the significance of the win.
"Every game is huge at this point," Waxman said. "We have the goal of winning the national championship, and this is just another step."
While Waxman was looking at the big picture, she still acknowledged that beating Northwestern in it of itself was rewarding after the last few years' results.
"I couldn't have asked for a better situation," the senior captain said. "It feels so good to beat them here on our home turf . It was good to reverse last year's embarrassment."
