With an early exit from the Ivy League tournament and a second upset loss to Princeton on its resume, the Penn women’s lacrosse team sat in limbo Sunday night awaiting the NCAA’s tournament seeding.
Senior co-captain Giulia Giordano said there were mixed feelings swirling around the locker room as to whether the team would in fact receive an at-large bid.
“Some people were kind of worried about it, and some people on the team thought we would definitely get it,” she said. “I was pretty confident that we were going to get in.”
Giordano proved correct, but the Quakers have a challenge on their hands as a No. 12 seed headed to Durham, N.C. for a rematch with Duke. Coach Karin Brower Corbett is happy just to be in the dance.
“You just never know until your name gets up there,” Corbett said. “So we’re excited we’re going.”
Those who were confident about the bid believed that, given Penn’s strength of schedule and upsets over then-No. 3 North Carolina and then-No. 4 Duke, the team would be granted the ninth or tenth seed. Despite the minor slight, the Quakers travel to Duke with the confidence of knowing they’ve already dispatched the Blue Devils once this season.
Penn pulled off a 13-10 upset win over Duke (13-3) at the end of April, but this time, Penn (11-5, 6-1 Ivy) will travel to Duke’s home turf for a Sunday matchup in the thick of both universities’ graduation events.
The bus trip to Durham may work in the Quakers’ favor, however. In addition to Penn’s victory over Duke earlier in the season, the Quakers ended the Blue Devils’ postseason runs in both 2008 and 2009, in which Penn advanced to the semifinals and quarterfinals, respectively.
“It’s nice we know what to expect,” Corbett said. “We don’t have to scramble and get a lot of tape on them. We have some tape we had prepared for them before, so that’s always nice, but it’s always hard to beat a team twice, too.”
While the Quakers were able to grab the first victory, Duke redshirt junior Emma Hamm netted four goals against Penn. Hamm is integral in Duke’s offense, which averages 14.41 goals per game.
“They are known for being a really strong team in the tournament always and that sort of changes everything,” Giordano said. “I think that we’re going to play really hard this week and go in with a similar game plan and be really confident.”
While the Quakers have mixed feelings on their first-round pairing, the seed at No. 12 comes as no shock to Corbett, considering the financial motivations surrounding tournament seeding. According to the coach, the NCAA only budgets for two teams to fly, and with Northwestern and Florida getting in, those two teams had to get certain bids.
While Corbett said she is glad her team will not be boarding a flight to Illinois to face Northwestern, she said this mileage phenomenon would also explain why the Quakers’ 2011 Ivy co-champion Dartmouth will travel to face No. 7 Albany.
After losing to national champion Maryland in the quarterfinals last year, the Quakers — in their fifth-straight NCAA appearance — look to return to the Final Four for the fourth time in five years.
