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Penn Field Hockey plays St. Joseph Credit: MacKinzie Neal

The Penn field hockey team knows how to win in dramatic fashion.

The Quakers started a winning streak Wednesday, defeating St. Joseph’s in a 4-3 thriller, for their second straight victory in overtime.

The win comes on the heels of Sunday’s 3-2 overtime win over Columbia, which ended a streak of 10 consecutive losses and brought the Quakers their first Ivy League win of the season.

Wednesday night’s game was a battle throughout as well. Penn (3-11, 2-3 Ivy) jumped out to an early lead over St. Joe’s (5-10) 11:21 into the game on a goal by captain Laurel McGarvie off a corner.

However, with 18 minutes remaining in regulation, the Quakers found themselves down 2-3. Needing a goal, midfielder Sarah Hasson, who led the offense throughout the game and already had two assists on the night, scored the game-tying goal off a corner to send the game into overtime.

Penn headed into the extra period with the odds against them — a yellow card on senior Kirstin Snyder at the end of regulation left the team down a player.

But she came back strong. With time dwindling in OT, Snyder stole the ball from St. Joe’s and netted the winning shot.

“It was awesome to score because I had gotten a yellow card and felt like I had let the team down,” she said.

Penn has seen improvements in its play in overtime games compared to last year, when the Quakers lost all four of their contests that went into extra periods.

The Quakers would not have won without the stellar play of goalkeeper Danielle Rothman, who had 12 saves. Since the score remained within one the entire game, each of these saves was clutch.

The victory also had special meaning to the team. Penn coach Colleen Quinn Fink graduated from St. Joe’s and coached there for three years before coming to Penn. Her father still coaches the women’s track team there.

“I didn’t want to psych out the team, but I wanted them to have understanding of the importance of the game,” Fink said.

The team believes that the two-game winning streak — Penn’s first in 25 games, a streak that dates back to September 2009 — is not an aberration, but rather a product of a change in the team environment.

“The energy is a lot different here than during the losing streak,” Snyder said. “It is a different atmosphere. If we keep the energy going, we can continue to win.”

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