W. Lax | Looking out for No. 1

Penn senior lacrosse captain Sarah Waxman has accomplished a lot in her career: She's has been named National Goalkeeper of the Year, has been to the Final Four, and is currently leading the nation in goals against average.

But one thing she hasn't done in four tries is beat Northwestern.

On Sunday, Waxman and the rest of the No. 5 Quakers (12-1, 7-0 Ivy) will be looking to avenge their only two losses of last season's campaign when the three-time defending National Champion, No. 1 Northwestern, (15-0) comes to Franklin Field.

In March 2007, the Quakers travelled to Evanston, Ill., and lost, 13-4. But even more painful was the second loss, a 12-2 laugher at Franklin Field in the NCAA Final Four.

"They just embarrassed us," Waxman said.

With the history between the teams, Waxman believes this game is one of the biggest of the year, even more so than the Quakers' Ivy League-clinching win over then-undefeated Princeton last week.

"We've already won the Ivy League, but the seeding in the [NCAA] Tournament is really important and you have to have quality wins to get a good seed," she said. "And some of the teams we've beaten have dropped in the rankings. So a quality win over Northwestern would clinch a top seed."

Fortunately for the Quakers, the Wildcats graduated some of their top talent from a year ago. Gone are Kristen Kjellman, who won the IWLCA Midfielder of the Year three times, and attack Aly Josephs, who had 187 career goals. The two combined for eight goals in each of the two wins over the Quakers last year.

"We're glad to have them graduate," Penn coach Karin Brower said.

Despite this exit of talent, Northwestern hasn't lost a step.

In their 15 wins, the Wildcats have been dominant. They've beaten seven ranked teams and are sixth in points and second in three other important categories: scoring offense, scoring defense and scoring margin.

Of those four categories, Penn is only ranked in two: It's first in scoring defense and 13th in scoring margin.

Even if the Wildcats hadn't dealt the two losses last year to Penn, this would still be a huge game. Penn and Northwestern are a combined 27-1 and are on 10- and 36-game winning streaks respectively. Northwestern's dates back to a 9-8 overtime loss in last season's opener at North Carolina.

But unlike Penn, which as a program has only started to hit its stride in recent years, Northwestern has been on a huge tear over the last five seasons. Since the start of the 2004 campaign, the Wildcats are an unbelievable 92-5 with three national championships.

The Quakers are happy that they get Northwestern at home in the spring, instead of early in the year in Chicago's cold weather like last year. But one downside to a late April home match is that Franklin Field is reserved for the Penn Relays. As a result, the team's practice schedule has been out of whack.

"It's not ideal," Brower said. "No question, it's a hard time. But every year we deal with it. It's frustrating, but we make the most of it."

Although a few weeks ago Waxman guaranteed victory against Cornell, and last week she was "99.9 percent" sure Penn would beat Princeton, she decided not to give a prognostication this time.

Instead, she said: "Our percentage will increase if we have a lot of support from our community, our fans, the professors. We're putting it all out there for a team that's nationally ranked for this university."

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