It’s taken nearly a decade, but Penn women’s lacrosse may have finally met its match in the Ivy League.
For the first time in the past nine seasons, the Quakers have failed to win either the Ancient Eight regular season or tournament championship. In both cases, they fell at the hands of rival Princeton.
It’s is now old news that Princeton took down Penn to steal the Ivy regular season title several weeks ago, but the Quakers would get their chance to avenge the loss in the Ivy postseason tournament.
But first, the Red and Blue would need to get past a pesky Cornell team in the first tourney’s first round.
On Friday, the Big Red gave Penn quite a scare, playing the Quakers to a one-goal game for the second time in a week. Much like in their Senior Day performance, though, the Quakers would find a way to pull through, defeating the Big Red, 7-6. Senior goalie Lucy Ferguson was the star of the game, essentially shutting down Cornell’s attack.
The first-round victory set up a clash of the Ivy titans on Sunday between Penn – the Ivy’s reigning powerhouse – and Princeton – the upstart.
Despite Penn’s history, though, the Tigers were not afraid. In fact, they thoroughly controlled the game, allowing the Quakers to lead for less than five minutes of the game and ultimately taking down Penn, 14-11.
The Quakers’ loss could signal the end of an era of complete and utter Penn dominance in the world of collegiate women’s lacrosse, which could be due in large part to the increased quality of the rest of the Ivy League.
The loss also put the Quakers in a tough position moving forward, as it blocked an automatic bid for Penn to qualify for the NCAA tournament. However, the team still picked up an at-large bid for the biggest tournament of the year off the strength of a 13-4 regular season.
Penn will look to bounce back from its Ivy tourney defeat in the first round of NCAAs against Albany this Friday.
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