Making the case for No. 1

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Today the Women's Lacrosse team beat Temple 15-2 on Senior Day at Franklin Field, shutting out the Owls (13-6) in the first half. The win puts the Quakers (14-1, 7-0 Ivy) in a great position going into the NCAA tournament, where they're looking to grab the top seed overall. Since the DP won't be publishing until May 16, my game updates in the last post and the following quotes with some commentary will serve as the game recap. You can also see a complete box score here.

Coach Karin Brower on Penn's dominating performance: "We felt we wanted to come out strong and make a statement of how great we can be. I think they took that to heart. And it was senior day and the seniors stepped up and played great in the first half… By the end we had everybody in."

Senior defender Tarah Kirnan on why the defense was untouchable: "[The Owls] were pretty good at cutting and assisted goals, so we just really had to work on defending those all week long… We just came out aggressive."

Senior attack Rachel Manson on the Quakers' motivation: "We were on a mission. We came out today and wanted to play like national champions. We wanted to improve our seeding, so we knew we had to put them away to do so. We really want that top seed."

Brower on getting the team to focus and not look ahead to the NCAAs: "This game was about where we're going to be seeded. If we had lost today we wouldn’t get a top four seed… We want to be a top four seed, so that's our motivation."

With a top four seed, the Quakers will be guaranteed home games for the first two rounds of the NCAAs. After that the the Final Four and National Championship games will be played at Towson University's Johnny Unitas Stadium.

Manson on how the Temple game affects the Quakers’ seeding: "I'd say it was a really important game for us. Obviously beating [then No. 1] Northwestern last week was huge. But we couldn't come out here and take Temple lightly. We needed to win to show people how good we are and to prove to ourselves how good we are."

Kirnan on the same topic: “We wanted to win since we knew that everyone's so skeptical about us getting a number one seed, that if we came out real strong and beat them by a large margin they wouldn't be so skeptical. Getting the number one seed is our main goal.”

Brower on the suffocating defense, including goalkeeper Sarah Waxman: "Our defense is playing really well, and [Waxman] is our anchor. She came up with some saves, but they didn't have a ton of shots. So you've definitely got to give credit to our defense. But she's our rock back there.”

From 2:35 remaining in the first half against Northwestern until Temple's Nicole Caniglia scored with 20:45 left in the second, Penn went an outstanding 71:50 without conceding a goal. And Waxman, a senior captain, did not concede either of Temple's two goals, so she still has an active scoreless streak of 62:52.

Kirnan on the scoreless streak: "It's so great. It makes us feel really good. Earlier in the season we needed to work on our team defense. But we've melded together. The past five games we've just been really strong. It's great going into the tournament having this kind of confidence."

In the last five games Penn has given up five, five, five, seven and two goals. Except for that seven which they gave up to Northwestern, those totals are below their NCAA-leading 6.00 goals-against average.

Manson on the superior defense: "Our defense is just unbelievable. I'm so lucky, the attack is so lucky that we get to practice against the top defense in the country every day. They push each other so hard. And they've just had two outstanding games in a row."

Brower on Manson's two goals and four assists: "She's been the leader of our attack all year. She's a very unselfish player. She did a fabulous job today."

Although Manson led the team in points today, she was far from being the only productive Quaker. An astonishing 14 Penn players earned at least one point, as the Quakers got 15 goals on 14 assists.

Kirnan on the offense taking off pressure from the defense: "The attack controlled the ball pretty well today. They had some really good opportunities and had a high shooting percentage today. The fact that they had the ball down on [Temple’s] end was the game."

The Quakers' first five shots all were goals, and by the end of the afternoon the Quakers had scored 15 goals on 27 shots, 23 of which were on target.

Brower on the senior class: "I think all of our seniors did a great job all year. They've been great all year at leading our team by example."

Kirnan on dominating on Senior Day: "We definitely wanted to come out and win after [the Senior Day] ceremony took almost half an hour. We were like 'there's no way we're losing this now.' We really wanted to win today since it's technically our last home game… We just love this field, we love playing. So it's good to end on a high note."

And as the NCAA finalizes its 16-team tournament field before Monday night's selection show, it'll be hard pressed to ignore this high note for the Quakers.