W. Lax Ivy notebook | Dissecting W. Lax postseason honors

With a 7-0 Ivy record, the Penn women's lacrosse team has already taken the title of Ivy team of the year.

But it's a little harder to predict the Player of the Year.

The finalists were recently released for the Tewaaraton Trophy - awarded to the nation's best male and female lacrosse players as voted on by coaches. Five Ivy League women's laxers made the list.

Penn had two selections: junior midfielders Ali DeLuca and Emma Spiro. Princeton also had two nominees: senior midfield Holly McGarvie and sophomore goalkeeper Erin Tochihara, and Dartmouth junior goalkeeper Julie Wadland rounded out the Ancient Eight contingent.

Ironically, the best player in the Ivy League might not even be any of those five. Currently Harvard's Jess Halpern leads the league in goals per game (2.86) and is second in points per game (3.43). Also, Penn's Emily Szelest has a lower goals against average (4.64) than either of the two goalies on the list.

But just because they don't lead the conference in every statistical category doesn't mean the nominees aren't deserving of Player of the Year honors. As a defensive midfield who still plays some attack, Spiro does everything from scoring (she's third on Penn with 24 goals) to winning the draw (she leads the conference with 3.31 per game) to defending the opponent's best player. DeLuca also does a little bit of everything, but she focuses more on offense than defense (she leads Penn with 27 goals).

Just like the two Penn middies, McGarvie excels all over the field. Her 3.08 points per game is eighth in the conference (ahead of both DeLuca and Spiro). But she also leads the conference in ground balls (also 3.08 per contest), caused turnovers and is just behind Spiro with 3.15 draw controls per game.

As for the goalies, Tochihara, despite her youth, seems to be superior to Wadland. Although the latter led the league in goals against average (5.15) and save percentage (.629) when the list came out Friday, the junior's numbers fell after the Big Green's 14-4 loss to the Tigers Saturday. Instead, Tochihara now leads the conference in save percentage and saves per game, with .578 and 8.31, respectively.

Rookie of the Year is less debatable. Although Brown's Katelyn Caro leads the Bears with 28 points, Penn freshman Erin Brennan leads all freshmen with a total of 34 points. The former No. 1 recruit according to some publications also has 16 groundballs and 17 draw controls for the No. 3 Quakers.

"She has a great chance at Rookie of the Year," Penn coach Karin Brower said after beating Princeton last Wednesday. "She hasn't been playing like a freshman for us."

Remembrance of Things Past. With their win over Brown Saturday, the Quakers clinched their third-straight undefeated Ivy League season and pushed their program-record Ivy winning streak to 22.

However, that record still falls way short of Harvard's conference-best 36-game winning streak that lasted from 1987 until 1993. Even more impressive was the fact that before they lost their '86 final, the Crimson had won 20-straight conference games.

But that all must seem like ages ago to the current Harvard squad.

After a shocking 11-10 last-second loss to Columbia Saturday, Harvard fell to 1-5 in the league this year. The Crimson are in a three-way tie for last in the conference with Yale and the Lions, although they sport the worst overall record (4-10).

"We were really disappointed with the outcome," Harvard junior Sara Flood told The Crimson after that loss. "We typically beat Columbia, and it's always a must-win on our schedule."

Despite losing "must-win" games, Harvard still has offensive firepower. Halpern is first in the league in goals and teammate Kaitlin Martin is third in points. Instead it has been Harvard's league-worst 12.84 goals allowed per game that has doomed the squad.

For the Crimson, 1993 never seemed farther away than it does now.

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