W. Lax | Spiro scorches Crimson

The individual matchup between Quakers junior Emma Spiro and Harvard sophomore Jess Halpern in Saturday's 18-9 Penn win exemplified the talent gap between the No. 3 women's lacrosse team and the unranked Crimson.

Coming into the contest, Halpern was Harvard's game-changer, with a team-leading 3.6 goals per match, while Spiro's 1.89 goal average was third on a dominating, well-balanced attack.

With Spiro marking Halpern from the outset, however, the Crimson star managed no goals on one shot attempt, did not garner a single draw control and was pressured into four turnovers.

Spiro, on the other hand, scored four goals on only five shots, picked up five draw controls and did not commit a turnover.

Not surprisingly, the Red and Blue maintained their perfect record en route to their highest scoring output of the season, doubling up Harvard with the 18-9 win.

"Emma's a great defender," coach Karin Brower said. Halpern "beat her a couple times, but Emma was able to get back in, and we had help from the rest of our team to slow her down."

Senior Becca Edwards - who tallied three goals, two assists and five draw controls of her own - said the team stayed aware of Harvard's best attackers so that defenders could quickly double-team them.

But by focusing too much on the top scorers, Penn allowed some of Harvard's other players to score early goals.

The Quakers (10-0, 4-0 Ivy) started slowly at first and found themselves tied at four with 12 minutes left in the first half. But following a Brower timeout, Spiro and fellow junior Ali DeLuca combined for a 5-0 run heading into the break.

Brower "just told us to really calm down and make better decisions on attack," Spiro said. "She really wanted our defense to step up. We had a gameplan heading into the game, and we were a little rough executing it in the first few minutes."

Penn had prepared all week for Harvard's unusual zone defense, but the Crimson (4-7, 1-2) came out in a straight man-to-man, which at first surprised the Quakers and may have contributed to their sluggish start before they adjusted.

"I think we were generally happy they didn't play zone," Spiro said. "We did prepare for it, but we've played against man [defense] all year."

Edwards added: "They might have been a little bit more disorganized than they would have been if it were their normal defense, so I think we were able to capitalize off of that a lot."

Despite the impressive final score, Brower nitpicked the defense, saying she was "a little disappointed" that her team allowed nine goals - Penn had given up a nation-best 4.3 goals per game in its first nine wins.

And even though the Quakers are a perfect 10-0, they still feel they have room for improvement before Saturday's matchup with No. 15 Dartmouth.

"We can't come out with such a slow start," Spiro said. "With a team like Dartmouth, they might capitalize on that - we might not be able to come back."