One down, three to go

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Note: This is my recap from yesterday's Penn-Colgate game. Sorry for the delay but I was waiting for Inside Lacrosse to edit it and post it to their site, but they never did.

PHILADELPHIA — The last time the University of Pennsylvania Women’s Lacrosse team played an NCAA tournament game in Franklin Field, Northwestern embarrassed the Quakers 12-2 in the Final Four.

But when the No. 2 Quakers took on Colgate Sunday in the first round of the NCAA tournament, it was the Quakers that embarrassed their opponents.

Behind a hat trick apiece from seniors Melissa Lehman and Rachel Manson as well as sophomore Ali DeLuca, the Quakers steamrolled the Raiders 16-7 in front of 513 spectators.

Colgate “looked impressive on tape and I think they have a lot of good athletes,” Penn coach Karin Brower said. “But I think we were just ready to come out right from the first whistle ... [We] just did an exceptional job of that.”

The game started off on a blistering pace as Penn scored the first goal just thirty seconds into the game. Even nine and a half minutes later the game was high scoring, as the score stood at 5-3 Penn 10 minutes into the game.

Colgate coach Heather Bliss was not surprised by this early offensive output.

“With women’s lacrosse you either have a very low scoring game or each team rattles off a lot of goals right in a row,” she said. “So I think it was typical to what we’ve seen all season and in other games.”

Brower chalked up the high output to an increased tempo, something which ironically is more a strength of Colgate than Penn.

“They play an up-tempo game and like to push it on the fast break,” Brower said. “We were ready for that … We’ve been working on fast breaks this week, which is usually something we don’t push.

“We got caught up in that tempo. But I think in the second half we did a better job of controlling the tempo.”

“It’s tournament time so you’ve got to bring it,” Manson added. “We were really fired up for this game, as we will be for the rest of our games.”

While the scoreboard showed a 10-4 Penn lead at the break, the Quakers (15-1) slowed down their play in the second half. They held onto to the ball for long stretches, as the two teams combined for only nine goals in the second frame.

In the end, the seven goals for Colgate (11-10) were above Penn’s nation-leading goals-against-average of 6.00. Also, the seven goals were an all-time tournament high for Colgate.

“We played how we normally play,” Colgate attack Molly Carroll said. “We heard their defense was great … But you have to put that aside and play like we normally play against other teams.”

On the flip side, Brower pointed out her team’s defense as the big negative from the game.

“I don’t think it was a strong defensive game for us,” Brower said. “I don’t think we played well as a team defensively. We left a lot of individual defenders in one-on-ones. We weren’t denying cuts very well. And usually that’s a big strength of ours, team defense. We clearly have a lot of work to do this week to get our defense back up to where we want it to be.”

But if the defense played poorly for their standards, the offense exceeded theirs. The 16 goals were the team's season high, and with her hat trick and two assists Manson continued her climb in the Quakers’ record book. The product out of Alexandria, Va., now has 111 career goals, which ties her with for second all-time with Karen McFadden, and 41 assists which ties her for fourth with Julie Heller. Those 152 points makes her Penn's third-highest point leader all-time, passing 2007 graduate Chrissy Muller.

“She’s really the quarterback of that attack,” Brower said of Manson. “She calms them down and steps things up and finishes when she needs to finish. She’s been an outstanding player for us for four years. It’s exciting that she’s playing so well in her senior year.”

For the Raiders, although the team had been to the tournament in both 2005 and 2006, this was the first time all but one of the players participated in the NCAAs since the team is youth-laden.

“It was pretty special for the two of us since we’re both from the Philadelphia area,” Raider goalkeeper Sara Drexler said of her and fellow junior Carroll. “I think I had 15 fans here today. It was a tough game; Penn’s a great opponent. But it was a really great first experience.”

Penn meanwhile had the experience of three tournament games last year, including the disaster against Northwestern. And Manson believes that after last year the team is even better equipped to go the distance in 2008.

“I think the team is a little more mentally prepared than last year,” she said. “People talked about last year as a Cinderella story and it happened so fast. But this year we came out with the goal of national champions and we’re not surprised we’re in the quarterfinals right now.”

Next up for the Quakers is No. 7 Boston University who dispatched New Hampshire 16-8 Sunday. But Saturday's game won't be played at Franklin Field despite Penn being the higher seeded team. Instead, because Franklin Field will be set up for graduation ceremonies, Penn must claim Drexel's Vidas Field as its home stadium.

Ironically, the Quakers and Terriers have only met once -- last year in the NCAA first round. Penn won 11-5. (Even more ironic, that game also wasn't played at Franklin Field due to graduation; it was played on Rhodes Field.)

"We played them last year," Brower said, "but I think they're an improved team. We're an improved team as well ... We've got to keep that final four goal in the back of our minds"