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(05/03/00 9:00am)
Penn topped Monmouth, which had not been defeated on its home field all season, to end the year. Before closing the book on its 2000 season, the Penn women's lacrosse team finally put another slash in its victory column. The Quakers ended their six-game losing streak last Saturday when they traveled to Monmouth University and dealt the Hawks their first home-field loss, 11-10. Penn's final record stands at 6-8 overall, 1-6 in the Ivy League. "We needed a win. It would have been hard to end the season with seven straight losses," Penn coach Karin Brower said. "I told them that what they'll remember when they look back on the season is that last game." Saturday wasn't the Hawks' first opportunity to be a part of Quakers memories, however. The teams first met back on March 4 when Penn opened its season with a series of scrimmages at William and Mary, including one against the New Jersey school. The Red and Blue came away with a tie on that afternoon, and Monmouth made an impression on Brower. "I knew we could win [Saturday], but that it wasn't going to be an easy game at all. They are a very physical team," the first-year coach said. It certainly wasn't easy. After Monmouth sophomore defender Christine Franzen netted the first goal of the game, the teams went back and forth for most of the afternoon, with neither one ever able to build more than a two-goal lead. "It was a stressful game, but I was happy to see that when they'd score, we'd answer rather than letting them score three or something. The goal wasn't the end of the world," Brower said. Penn took a 7-5 advantage into the locker room at halftime, but Monmouth junior Kristen Hall scored right after the intermission to bring her team within one. Freshman Kate Murray's goal with 20 minutes remaining gave the Quakers an 8-6 lead, but Penn couldn't fend off the Hawks for long, as they scored back-to-back goals to tie things up at eight with 13:38 left to play. Several goals and minutes later, Penn had squandered a lead and found itself down 10-9 with just 2:22 left on the clock. Its usual offensive weapons had been at work all day -- Crissy Book, Murray, Jayme Munnelly, Traci Marabella, Whitney Horton, Jenny Hartman and tri-captain Brooke Jenkins all found the back of the net -- but it was Bess Lochocki, a relatively unheralded member of the Quakers attack, who tied the score at 10. The freshman had spent most of the season on the sidelines, but Brower decided that her quickness warranted more minutes, so she made sure to get Lochocki into the mix in the season's final games. This proved to be a wise decision on the first-year coach's part, as Lochocki scored three goals last game against Temple and then came through with this momentum-turning goal at Monmouth. Murray was also a Quakers standout during their last two contests. The freshman's three goals and four assists earned her a spot on the Ivy League honor roll this past week. Both she and Book scored 16 goals for the season to tie for third in scoring behind Jenkins (25) and Marabella (31). With the score tied and 1:37 remaining, it was Marabella's second goal of the afternoon that finally closed the door on Monmouth. Penn stalled for the remainder of the contest and proceeded to spoil the Hawks' perfect home record. Brower said the win was a perfect way to end the season because, for the first time, her team pulled out a close contest rather than buckling under the pressure as it's done in the past. "They played with a lot of heart, which I'd hoped for," Brower said. "They really put it all together." Looking ahead to next season, Brower said that while her first recruiting class won't really arrive until fall 2001, she is still encouraged by next year's prospects. Not only will she receive an influx of talented newcomers, but this season's freshmen will have the opportunity to assume even larger leadership roles.
(04/27/00 9:00am)
The Quakers need to win both of their final two games to finish at .500, but it won't be eary today at Temple. After dropping its fifth straight contest last week, the Penn women's lacrosse team has a chance to turn things around today and shoot for .500. The Quakers head to Temple's Geasey Field where a victory will improve them to 6-7 overall, with the final game of the season approaching on Saturday against Monmouth. "A win would be great [against Temple], but our next two games could both go either way," Penn coach Karin Brower said. "I have to get my team to realize what they want. Do they want to be .500 or do they want to end with seven losses in a row?" The choice seems simple, but according to Brower, Penn doesn't always play like it really wants to win. The first-year coach said her team often lacks the heart and hustle necessary to persevere in close contests. In fact, she said that in her eyes Penn has only won a single tough game this season, an 11-8 triumph against Lafayette. "We won the games that we should have won," Brower said. "But against Harvard, Rutgers and Brown we were the underdogs, but we still had a shot. So it was frustrating that we didn't play up to our potential in those games." Temple coach Kim Ciarrocca echoed Brower's woes when discussing her own team's streaky performance. The Owls have compiled a 7-7 record, but they have yet to win more than two games in a row. Their league record currently stands at 5-1, with their only loss coming against UMass, which was also the only non-ranked opponent to defeat them. "We've been up and down here at Temple," Ciarrocca said. "When we're up, we go to goal more, take more shots and are more aggressive on attack. We double the ball in the midfield better. That's a good Temple team. That's what happens when Temple shows up." If the Owls show up today, Brower said her team should expect a feistier opponent than their typical Ivy League match-ups. She told them that the Atlantic 10 Conference members will probably be the most physical team they'll play all year. "They've got tough kids and different types of kids than we usually see in the Ivy League. They don't have any phenomenal players like Dartmouth or Princeton, but they're strong and powerful," Brower said. "They'll be like Harvard, but rougher -- less finesse and more run-and-gun." Ciarrocca wasn't as quick to differentiate her team from the Ivy Leaguers, however. She said the Owls are no more aggressive than the likes of Princeton and Dartmouth. And Ciarrocca should know, because the Tigers took care of her team, 13-10, a few weeks ago. Aside from both losing to Princeton this season, Penn has something else in common with its Philly neighbor. Each team will bring a young line-up into today's contest, with just 13 upperclassmen between them, six of which are on the Penn roster. But experience is all relative, and Brower said the Owls still have a year on her team. Temple's strength is in its six sophomores, who took the reigns last year when six seniors graduated. Ciarrocca said that some inexperience has still led to midfield turnovers for her team all season long. She claimed her young Owls have a lot of learning to do, but lamented that there is just one senior attacker to show them the way -- 5'9'' Kelly Ruch from Phoenixville, Pa. If the statistics are any indication, Ruch is doing pretty well despite her young supporting cast. She leads the team in scoring for the second year in a row with 48 goals, and her 9 assists are good for second. While the Quakers will certainly have their hands full with Ruch, Brower expressed more concern with freshman midfielder Patience Synnestvedt, whose size and power are more daunting than the 21 goals she's netted this season. "She's like six feet tall and 180 something," Brower said, and the Owls roster concurs. Ciarrocca said she is expecting a quicker and more agile team than she's seen in past Quaker squads. The key for her team, she said, will be effective double-teaming in the midfield to slow Penn down.
(04/19/00 9:00am)
Karin Brower was an assistant with the Tigers for two years. Her Quakers visit them today. The hits just keep on coming for the Penn women's lacrosse team. Since defeating La Salle on April 4, the Quakers have dropped three straight games against Harvard, Rutgers and Dartmouth. And things won't get any easier today when the Red and Blue (5-5, 1-4 Ivy League) travel to Princeton this afternoon. After losing 18-7 to No. 9 Dartmouth last Saturday, Penn coach Karin Brower said the Big Green were definitely in a "different league" than her young squad. And judging by Princeton's perfect league record, 11-1 overall mark and No. 2 national ranking, Penn will likely get another taste of that superior league today at Old Nassau. "It's definitely hard to play them back-to- back, but I think we played better against Dartmouth this year than we have in years past, so it's easier to think about playing Princeton now," Penn junior goalkeeper Christian Stover said. "I think it's going to be a fun game. We really have nothing to lose." Stover noted one thing that should make her job in the cage a bit easier than in last year's 17-3 loss, explaining that Penn will not have to contend with Princeton's Christi Samaras on attack this time around. The Tigers 1998-99 star captain has graduated after scoring an impressive 44 goals last season. Brower isn't too comforted by Samaras' departure, though, and she is certainly well-versed on Princeton lacrosse after serving as an assistant coach with the Tigers for two years before coming to Philadelphia. "Honestly, this team is doing so well as a team. It's not like they have any outstanding players like Samaras," Brower said. "They weren't expected to do as well as they're doing this year, but they're just really playing well together. Every single position is scoring." But the Tigers do have one standout whom Brower remembers -- junior Julie Shaner, a former Ivy League Rookie of the Year who has 19 goals this season. "She's going to be a problem for us," Brower said. "She's just very tenacious. She's just one of those kids who, when you check her, she comes back at you." Shaner is one of just four Tigers leftovers from Brower's coaching days, so the former assistant said she won't have much inside information to help her cause against the Ivy League powerhouse. Brower is sure of one thing, however. When the Quakers face Princeton this afternoon, they will witness firsthand the type of play that she is always encouraging from her new team. "They all move off the ball like I'm trying to get my kids to do, but [Penn is] just not at that level yet," Brower said. "Princeton understands attack movement, and they understand team defense because they've been in that system for a while and they've had those older kids to look up to, which I don't have. "It will be great for my kids to play them because they will finally get to see what I'm always talking about." According to Brower, last week's contest with the Big Green showed how far Penn's attack will need to go before it can compare with the nation's best. But whereas Dartmouth's strength lay in its offense, Brower feels Princeton will teach the Red and Blue a thing or two about defense. Penn attacker Traci Marabella said the Quakers are ready and willing to treat today's contest as a learning experience, but the sophomore had a few other things on her mind, too. "With a little luck, and maybe if they happen to have an off game then maybe we could pull off the upset."
(04/14/00 9:00am)
With five games still remaining on its schedule, the Penn women's lacrosse team (5-4) has already surpassed last year's squad in total wins. But if you look solely at the Ivy League standings, it might appear that little has changed since then. Penn still sits near the bottom of the league with just a single victory over Columbia to speak of. The Quakers have not beaten another Ivy opponent since April 11, 1998. The Red and Blue can break that streak tomorrow when they travel to Hanover, N.H., to face Dartmouth (6-1, 4-0) at noon. But if the national rankings are any indication, the No. 9 Big Green will offer a more imposing challenge than typical Ivy foes. "They are a different level, and that's just a fact," Penn coach Karin Brower said. "We're not there yet. Penn hasn't recruited, and they get the best kids in the country." The Big Green have compiled a perfect league record, coupled with non-conference wins over New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Boston University. Senior captain Brooke Jenkins said tomorrow's game will definitely be Penn's toughest to date. "We're just hoping to give them a good game," Traci Marabella said. "But it would be nice if we could come up with the upset." If the Quakers hope to win, they will need an answer for Dartmouth's Jacque Weitzel, the nation's leading scorer with 4.57 goals per game. "[Weitzel] is about 5'11'' and left handed, so she's tough to guard," Jenkins said. "She's a big strong girl who can really beat you with her size. We just have to stick on her like glue." But Brower said that even if Penn loses, it will still benefit just from facing Dartmouth. "I think it's great for us to play a team like this because it shows us where we need to go," she said.
(04/11/00 9:00am)
The Quakers fell behind 8-1 before their furious comeback fell just short. Due to inclement weather on Sunday, the Penn women's lacrosse game scheduled for 1 p.m. on Franklin Field got off to a late start. Its contest with Harvard was delayed by nearly an hour, as extra time was needed to clear snow off the turf. But even after a warm water treatment made the field presentable, the competition still didn't get fully underway for almost another hour. After all, the Quakers didn't really show up until midway through the second half. Unfortunately, when Penn put together its 5-0 run to end the game, it was too little, too late. The Quakers came up short by two goals and fell, 11-9, to the Crimson. "It's frustrating to see them play the game in the last four minutes when it's an hour long," Penn coach Karin Brower said. Penn actually put the first goal on the board when freshman Crissy Book scored five minutes into the contest. But the Quakers held this advantage for just 90 seconds, and it was their only lead of the afternoon. Lizzy Frisbie countered and began a 5-0 run for the Crimson, who took a 5-1 lead into the locker room at halftime. The trend continued after intermission, as Harvard tallied three more unanswered goals before Penn's Traci Marabella finally restarted the Quakers offense after its 30-minute sabbatical. Penn outscored the Crimson, 7-3, from there in, but despite efforts by Marabella, senior captain Brooke Jenkins and freshman Kate Murray, Penn could not make up for its early mistakes. "We weren't aggressive; we didn't go to goal; we didn't challenge on attack; and we didn't run the plays well," Brower said. "They out-hustled us. I don't think they were a faster team than us, but they just wanted it more." The Quakers had already dropped their first two Ivy contests of the year against Yale and Cornell, and with their only win coming against Columbia, yesterday's loss puts them at 1-3 in the league. According to Brower, the same problems keep spelling defeat for her team. "Cornell, Yale and [Harvard] -- we could have won those games, but we looked intimidated," Brower said. "I don't know if it's inexperience or what, but they say that they think they can beat a team, and then they don't play that way." After losing to Harvard, the first-year coach couldn't even find comfort in what seems to be her greatest feat to date. The Quakers have put five wins together this season -- a marked improvement from last season's 1-12 record. "[Brower] has done a really nice job," Harvard coach Carole Kleinfelder said. "The team is obviously playing so much better than last year. But they're young, so they're still going to make a lot of nervous mistakes." But just being better than last year isn't enough for Brower. "The thing that really bothers me is that I feel like -- yeah, we're better than last year -- but that wasn't so hard to do," Brower said. "We've got to win a game that counts, and that's important. We've beaten the teams that we should beat. We need to beat a team when it's a close game." Judging by the 11-9 score, one would think the game against Harvard was one such close contest. But anyone who braved the weather and journeyed to Franklin Field on Sunday could tell you otherwise. Even though the last few minutes provided plenty of excitement and hope for the Penn faithful, Harvard held a commanding lead for most of the contest until Penn changed its offensive strategy in the final minutes. "I'd been telling them the whole game that they could take their kids to goal and then finally -- in the last four minutes -- they go to goal," Brower said. "We didn't challenge their defenders and then finally like [Murray] decided to take her girl to goal and she got three shots off." Some personnel changes by the Crimson late in the game also made the Red and Blue's job a little bit easier. "They did change their goalie, which helped a lot," Brower said. "But whether or not they switched the goalie, at least we were getting the shots off." In addition to pulling goal keeper Nora Guyer, Kleinfelder also cleared most of her bench. When asked if the new lineup contributed to Penn's late run, the Crimson coach did not hesitate to respond with, "Oh yeah, no question." "Of course, it was still nerve wracking since it was a game that we'd had total control over, but I got everybody in who was sitting on the bench. We didn't play as well, but I always had [the starters] to put back in to stop it," Kleinfelder said.
(03/29/00 10:00am)
The Quakers took care of a Lafayette squad that last season beat them by seven. Before its game against Lafayette even started last night, the Penn women's lacrosse team already had a score to settle. The Leopards' head coach Jill Johnson-Redfern told Penn coach Karin Brower during warm-ups that she had heard the Quakers were "the same team as last year, but with a better attitude." When the final buzzer sounded, however, it was clear that more than just a better attitude separates this year's team from last year's 1-12 squad. The Quakers (3-2) defeated Lafayette (0-3), 11-8, in their first home game of the season. "I think we probably shocked them a little bit," Brower said. "I don't think they expected us to pressure them as much as we did and be as fast as we were, so that we could keep up with them." Kellee Salber struck first for the Leopards just two minutes into the contest. The senior's straight run to the goal looked effortless, prompting someone in the stands to scream out that it should be a "wake-up call" to the Quakers. Penn hit the collective snooze button for a few more minutes before Whitney Horton and Amy Weinstein responded with back-to-back goals just 25 seconds apart. Lafayette's Heather McClelland countered, but the Quakers tallied another four goals -- including three by senior captain Brooke Jenkins -- to take a 6-2 lead into the locker room at the intermission. After trailing by as many as four goals, the Leopards pulled within one to bring the score to 9-8 with four minutes remaining. But Penn shut the door on Lafayette as Jayme Munnelly and Traci Marabella scored in the closing minutes to end the game, 11-8. "We closed the gap, and we got close. But we could never get close enough. Penn was tough because they kept coming back, and they responded to every challenge that we gave them," Johnson-Redfern said. With 13 freshmen wearing the Red and Blue, Penn's personnel alone should have looked different to Johnson-Redfern when comparing the team to last year's. But while she might have missed these new faces during warm-ups, they were hard to ignore once the game began. The young Quakers accounted for six of Penn's 11 goals -- two each by Munnelly and Horton and one by both Alison Polk-Williams and Crissy Book. Penn's freshmen made their presence known on defense, too. "Christy Bennett did a great job on their big gun [Heather McClelland]," Brower said. "When I saw [Lafayette] play, she was definitely their go-to girl, and [Bennett] didn't allow her to challenge. As a freshman, I was really proud of her." Marabella said her team has not just changed since last year -- it has changed since last week. That is good news for the Quakers, since their last contest was a 15-5 loss to Cornell on the road. "I think we were really pissed off about Cornell, and we wanted to show that we are so much better than that," Marabella said. "It sounds really dumb because we got crushed by Cornell, but we really could have beaten them. We just lost our heads." This decapitation resulted in frenetic play against the Big Red such that the Quakers rarely executed their offensive sets. Fortunately for the Quakers, Penn had a few practice days to consider the error of its ways before taking the field against Lafayette last night. "We had some intense practices where we analyzed the game," Munnelly said. "We're really good at breaking down what we did wrong, correcting it and then moving on rather than dwelling on it." Brower definitely noticed a few corrections on her team's part. "They were much more aggressive, and they wanted it more [than Saturday]. They double-teamed the ball, went after ground balls, didn't get beaten to the balls, made smarter decisions on attack, ran through the plays, spread out more and worked as a team," she said. And that was just the offense. "Defensively, we did a better job at keeping them out and dropping -- not letting an open kid be there as much," Brower said. "We didn't communicate really well on Saturday. "To be honest, I think Cornell was a good loss for us because they needed to step it up and push themselves harder."
(03/27/00 10:00am)
After scoring the game's first goal, the Quakers struggled mightily. Tell any member of the Penn women's lacrosse team that spring is in the air, and she might argue with you. Despite the near-spring temperatures, the Quakers succumbed to a snowball effect over the weekend. After Brooke Jenkins' goal eight minutes and eight seconds into the first half gave Penn a 1-0 lead over Cornell, the Quakers held the Big Red scoreless for another six minutes until Ginny Miles put their first goal on the board to tie the game. That goal started an onslaught of seven straight goals for Cornell before the halftime buzzer finally stopped the Big Red attack. Well, stalled it anyway. Even though Penn came out of the locker room and quadrupled its first half production with another goal by Jenkins and one each from Christy Bennett, Traci Marabella and Jayme Munnelly, Cornell doubled that number and scored eight more goals en route to a 15-5 victory. Jaimee Reynolds scored four Big Red goals while Miles, Erica Holveck and Katie McCorry each chipped in three apiece. "We couldn't get ourselves out of the hole," Penn coach Karin Brower said. "There was no leadership to calm the attack or make the defense pressure hard." One person Brower normally looks to when her young team needs direction is Jenkins, who captains the Quakers. "It was definitely frustrating because [Brower] expects us to be leaders and tell the freshmen what to do, but everyone got so down and stopped playing hard," Jenkins said. "We just kept making the same mistakes over and over." According to Munnelly, impatience and poor decision-making plagued the Quakers' offense all afternoon. "I was rushed and nervous," Munnelly said. "I felt like my head wasn't there." Brower said that much of her squad suffered from the same ailment. Instead of executing set plays and passing through Cornell's trapping defense, Penn (2-2, 0-2 Ivy League) tried to run with the ball, which resulted in many turnovers and dropped balls. "After the first five minutes we didn't run a play the entire game," Brower said. "We weren't working as a team. Instead of helping each other get into the open space, we would stand there thinking, 'I'll watch her go to goal and see if she can get through three people.'" But Brower said she understood where many of these tendencies might have started. Penn's attackers have been successful in running through double teams during previous wins over slower opponents American and Villanova. "The fast midfielders are used to being able to run down the field and beat their opponents," Jenkins said. "They weren't able to adjust to Cornell's quickness." When Brower felt the game slipping out of reach, she called a timeout and encouraged her team to pass in the midfield and run the plays correctly. But when play resumed, the Quakers continued to make the same mistakes, despite her instructions. "Karin is really good under pressure," Munnelly said. "She told us to stay calm and control the ball, but we did the opposite." The Quakers' determination to run the ball was not the only deviation from Brower's game plan. After watching Cornell (5-0, 1-0) play Rutgers on film, she noticed the Scarlet Knights had better luck against goalkeeper Carrie Giancola when they shot the ball high. But after Brower shared her knowledge with the Quakers, they still shot the ball low, giving Giancola an easier time. Brower tried to frame the loss positively, calling it an eye-opener for her young team. It definitely made an impression on Munnelly. "We're going to use it as a stepping stone," Munnelly said. "We didn't play our game. That's not what we're going to be this year."
(03/07/00 10:00am)
Ask any member of the Penn women's lacrosse team how she felt when first taking the field against Old Dominion on Saturday and she will give you the same answer -- nervous. The game was just a scrimmage -- the first of 11 the Quakers would play over the weekend at the College of William and Mary -- so it had no bearing on records or statistics. Still, there was plenty riding on the 25 minutes of competition. It was Penn's first game under new coach Karin Brower, and the team's first chance to turn things around after last season's disappointing 1-12 performance. "I think that going out there everyone was a little nervous that we weren't going to play well and that our confidence would be shot," Penn senior tri-captain Brooke Jenkins said. Penn's first-year coach made her debut at her alma mater, the College of William and Mary -- the place where she earned All-America status as a player just eight years ago. "I think she was a little nostalgic. She would be like, 'Oh, this is this and that is that' and she would just go off a little bit," junior goalkeeper Christian Stover said. "It was kind of cool to see things from her perspective since she went to school there and coached there for a little bit." But the Quakers got over their butterflies quickly and defeated Old Dominion, as well as their next opponent, Richmond. Penn's upperclassmen had not achieved back-to-back wins since 1998, with last year's team claiming just one victory against Columbia. Of course, Penn did not look much like last year's squad, with 13 freshmen wearing the Red and Blue and a new coach pacing the sidelines. Jenkins said Brower's style differed from former coach Anne Sage's in several respects. "In the past, we had no coaching on attack," Jenkins said. "[Sage] would just be like, 'Go down there and set up whatever you want,' but [Brower] tells us, 'I want you to run this, this and this,' so it's more structured -- which is good." Brower mostly played her starters in the first two contests, but by the third game against Shippensburg, every member of the Quakers was getting into the action. In fact, Brower put out freshmen-only teams for several of the scrimmages. "They really didn't play timid," Stover said. "Maybe in the first couple minutes of the first scrimmage they did, but then they came out completely dominat[ing] over people who have had more experience then they've had." One freshman really made a name for herself -- literally. Crissy Book from Coatesville, Pa., defended her opponent so closely that Penn's assistant coach Amy Sullivan started calling her 'the White Shadow.' "I guess [the White Shadow] is a cartoon or something," Penn senior tri-captain Lee Ann Sechovicz said. "[Book] would come out of nowhere and get the ball away from her player every single time. She'd either intercept it or take it away from her." Brower described Book as deceivingly fast and very composed with the ball. Judging by Sechovicz's reaction to the freshman's play, Book just might have deceived her own teammates before last weekend's showing. "She'd started to come out in practice, but we never saw her full-force like that before," Sechovicz said. Jenkins' performance was another promising sign for Penn. The senior, who tore her ACL playing field hockey last season, said that her knees held up throughout the whole weekend of competition. "She had a little problem mobility-wise defending the clear, but she knows where to go, and she came up with a lot of balls just from being in the correct position," Brower said. With such a young squad, Jenkins' on-field presence will be crucial in leading the Quakers attack this season. "The upperclassmen have been here, so they know how to push us along," freshman Kate Murray said. "Offensively, I look up to [Jenkins] because she knows a lot about college-level play." Brower said that even though the Quakers successes were "off the record" last weekend -- from the initial wins to the final victory over Division III powerhouse The College of New Jersey -- there was still much to gain from the scrimmages. "I think the best thing is that they came back with a little bit of confidence. They came back believing that all of the hard work they've been doing is going to pay off eventually," Brower said. "That was really positive. I think they feel they're ready to take on their first game." The Quakers' season officially begins on March 14 when they face American University in Washington, D.C.
(03/06/00 10:00am)
Penn clinched the Ivy title in front of the Palestra faithful. After clinching the Ivy League title and ensuring themselves a spot in the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year, the members of the Penn men's basketball team did what they'd been waiting their entire collegiate careers to do -- cut down the nets in front of 5,000 cheering fans in the historic Palestra. Penn has not clinched a championship in the storied confines of its home arena since 1994, so even for seniors Michael Jordan, Matt Langel and Frank Brown, climbing the ladder on Saturday night was a novel experience. "It feels especially good for me because it's my fifth year," Brown said. "We were co-champions my freshman year, so to finally win in front of all these great fans that we have at the Palestra -- it's just a great feeling." The weekend's victories over Brown and Yale gave Penn a 13-0 Ivy record and an insurmountable two-game lead over Princeton. The win over Yale on Saturday gives Penn a 20-7 record for the year with one game left. After early season struggles, including an embarrassing 105-59 blowout loss to Kansas on January 4 and nonconference losses to national powerhouses Kentucky, Auburn and Temple as well as to Penn State and Villanova , the Quakers are now riding a 15-game winning streak – the second longest streak in Division I. The team's final game is tommorrow, against the hated Princeton Tigers in a sold-out Palestra. Despite the insignificance of the game in terms of the league championship, the Quakers are clearly gunning for their perennial archrival. "A lot of teams have won championships, but not a lot of teams have gone undefeated in the league. That's something that's hard to do," Langel said. Jordan, the team's star point guard whose 1,571 points rank him third on the Penn men's basketball all time list, certainly got into the celebration. After most pieces of the net had been distributed, the senior took what was left of it, climbed up on the naked rim and swung the net around like he was training for a rodeo as spectators screamed "M-V-P" for the Ivies' dominant player. The "M-V-P" cheer for Jordan was popular throughout Penn's season, along with the traditional "Let's Go Quakers," various pleas for cheesesteaks and the infamous airball chant. "Our fans are really great. They have come through basically all year long for us," said Quakers head coach Fran Dunphy, who has now won five Ivy League titles in his 11 years at Penn. "There are a lot of loyal people who love Penn basketball and I think it shows every time we play." The Quakers just have to look behind their own bench to find one such loyal fan. Susan Arenschield, whose father was a former Penn assistant athletic director, has perfected her "Go Frankie!" shout for Brown. "I've been rooting for him for five years for no reason," Arenschield said. "I've never met him, I just think he does better when I scream for him. He knows someone's out there. My mom and I come to every game. She's been coming for 80 years." Another Penn fan who is hard to miss is College junior Alex Moskowitz, who paints his face red and blue for every game. "We're going to the tourney and we're going to win a game, baby," Moskowitz said. "We're going to win at least one." And an NCAA Tournament victory would please College senior Ryan Orr. He said that at this point in his career as a Penn fan, rushing the court after winning an Ivy championship leaves something to be desired. "I've done it three times, and it's getting old. We need to win a tournament game before anybody gets really excited," Orr said. Others would beg to differ, though. "I mean, winning the Ivy League championship -- it's awesome to see the crowd so excited," Wharton senior Steve Rubin said. "When they get loud and then all of the sudden it's deafening out there and everyone runs out on the court -- it's the best." The Quakers now look toward the NCAA Tournament, where they hope to go further than last year in Seattle, when they made an early first-round exit with a loss to Florida. This year, possible first-round venues include Buffalo, N.Y.; Salt Lake City, Utah; Tucson, Ariz.; Cleveland; Winston-Salem, N.C.; Minneapolis, Minn.; Nashville, Tenn.; and Birmingham, Ala. The tournament bracket will be announced on Sunday.
(03/02/00 10:00am)
Each time Sara Evans opens her locker before practice, a quote pasted on the door reminds her that Penn's new lacrosse coach Karin Brower expects her to take risks on the field. The quote is one of many that hangs in the Quakers' locker room -- each one chosen by Brower to reach a different team member. "The quotes are personalized. They remind her of one of us, or of what we should be working on or thinking about," Evans said. "Mine happens to be about taking risks and such because I'm a defender and I know I need to do that." According to Evans, the quotes are just one way that Brower, a former Princeton assistant coach, shows a commitment to helping each of her new players. Evans said this personal attention is a welcomed change from the coaching system that Anne Sage piloted from the start of Penn's lacrosse program until last season when her players successfully petitioned to have her removed. "She's individualized the coaching more than has been done in the past. She's made an effort to show that she's trying to get to know us, and help us, and make us better lacrosse players," Evans said. But that is not the only thing Brower has changed. When asked what else she brought to the Penn women's lacrosse program, Evans chuckled and said, "She brought a program." The Quakers had been without a head coach since the start of the 1999 season, and problems with Sage's system date back years before then. In fact, junior goalkeeper Christian Stover said Sage's own assistant Alanna Wren -- who served as an interim coach last season -- knew her mentor's shortcomings all too well. "[Wren] played under Sage through college, and she found the same problems when she was there that we went through," Stover said. "I think she supported [the petition], even though she never really said so. I think she was proud of us that we did step up and do something because it had been a problem for a while." Hopefully, Brower has brought a program that resembles the one she left behind in Princeton. The Tigers went to the NCAA Tournament in all three years that Brower was there. Penn's coach assisted in Old Nassau from 1996-98. "In the beginning, we kind of made jokes about the fact that Princeton is our rival, but it doesn't affect us much," Stover said. "It's definitely good that she comes from such a high-caliber program." But Brower's coaching career began well before her Princeton days. Prior to joining the Tigers, the 1992 William and Mary graduate served as Villanova's assistant lacrosse coach, William and Mary's assistant field hockey coach and Division III Drew's head lacrosse coach. Brower won two conference titles in two years at Drew and then moved on to Princeton. Following a year-long respite, she will now try to help the Quakers rebuild from their 1-12 mark last season. "[Brower] basically brought the things that you normally take for granted as a team member -- the intensity, the challenge, the goals, the positive attitude," Evans said. "Especially for the older players, she's helped to remind us of all the simple things. She's brought back the fundamental ideals of the team." In addition to improving her current squad, Brower also seems better than Sage at finding new talent for the future. Brower said that with the increasing number of scholarship programs around the nation, today's Ivy League lacrosse coaches must put more effort into the recruiting process. "I think sports has changed and I think that some of the older coaches' philosophies haven't changed. They didn't actively recruit. That wasn't why they started coaching. They coached because they loved to coach -- not to recruit -- and it's definitely a huge part of the job and you have to love to do that," Brower said. "I don't think [Sage] went out and recruited a lot because that's not how it was when she first started." Sage's laid-back recruiting style seemed to correlate with her attitude toward college athletics as a whole. "Sage's style of recruiting was far less intense because her opinion was that you come to school to go to school and playing lacrosse is whatever," Evans said. "In a sense that's a somewhat good attitude, but that doesn't create a winning team." Stover feels Brower's practices are better recipes for success. "Practices are structured to the minute," Stover said. "And she changes it up everyday, so we're never really doing the same thing twice. We might be working on the same things, but in a different style so it keeps us excited and it and it doesn't get monotonous." Something that certainly got monotonous last season was Penn's losing ways. The Quakers' only victory came against Columbia midway through the season -- embedded in 12 disheartening losses. While Brower's addition obviously cannot erase the past, she might be the key to turning things around for the future.
(02/25/00 10:00am)
The Quakers look to hold on to first place in the Ivy League with two wins on their New England road swing. After dispatching Cornell and Columbia at the Palestra last weekend, the Penn men's basketball team stands in a very exciting position with March Madness approaching. If the Quakers can tack on another 11 wins to their current 11-game winning streak -- which dates to January 25 -- they can bring home the national title. Penn has just six regular season contests left, and a 5-0 run through the NCAA Tournament would take them straight to the top. "I can't say that I've pictured in my mind winning the next 11 games and being national champions," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. OK, so back to reality. Before they can even imagine cutting down the nets in Indianapolis, the Quakers must first clinch the Ivy League title with four more victories. Their first chance is this weekend at Dartmouth and Harvard. "I think we realized after the Temple game -- that was a tough loss -- that if we won our next 16 games we were going to be in the tournament and we were going to be happy," Penn center Geoff Owens said. While neither the Big Green nor the Crimson can share Penn's postseason aspirations, an upset for either Dartmouth or Harvard would significantly help its Ivy standing. At this point, just one game separates the third- through seventh-place teams. Harvard (10-13, 5-5 Ivy League), which is in third place, just ahead of the Big Green (8-15, 4-6), has two streaks going. Penn has reason to be wary of both. For starters, the Crimson swept Brown and Yale last weekend. Junior forward Dan Clemente lead with 22 points against the Bears and 19 the following night. Despite scoring just three points in Harvard's 79-52 loss at the Palestra just weeks ago, Clemente has racked up a 19.1 points per game average for the season. This figure would place him first among Ivy scoring leaders, but he is ineligible for the honor since he missed 11 games while recovering from eye surgery. Second, the Crimson have won five straight home finales, including an overtime win over Princeton in '98-'99 and an upset over Penn the previous year. "I think we lost to them at their place my freshman year," Owens said. "It's their home, and Penn is coming to town, so we're going to expect a hell of a game from them." Dartmouth coach Dave Faucher recognized that his team could beat Penn tonight, but knows that it will take a top performance from his sixth-place squad. "We're expecting Penn to play well, and they usually do," Faucher said. "They're leading the league in both offensive and defensive field goal percentage, so that's a double-edged sword that we have reason to be concerned about. We have to be at our best -- our very best." According to Faucher, Dartmouth's best usually comes in transition. The ninth-year coach said that his guards, Greg Buth and Flinder Boyd, will have to push the pace if they hope to compete with Penn. Buth is second on the team in scoring with 16.9 points per game, while Boyd's 8.6 points per contest is good for third. Boyd also leads the Big Green in assists at seven per contest. Penn has won its last five meetings with Dartmouth, including a 75-61 victory on February 12, but Faucher said that loss was actually a turning point for his team. Despite falling to the Quakers, Dartmouth's strong second-half play was enough to please Faucher. Buth scored 18 against Penn that night. "I'm proud of my guys," Faucher said. "We played a good second half against Penn, and we've carried it through the last four games. There's a lot of fighting in the Big Green." Dartmouth, like the Crimson, swept Yale and Brown last weekend to double its league wins and up its overall record to 8-15. But the Quakers learned their lesson in the last game versus Dartmouth and will be ready for its second-half antics tonight. "Last time toward the end we let them back in the game a little bit, so I think we're just going to try to go out there and knock them out real quick -- get it over with -- and then stay tough," Penn forward Frank Brown said. Most likely, Dartmouth's squad also learned a lesson on February 12 -- to beware of Michael Jordan. The senior guard scored 24 points on an 8-for-12 shooting performance that night. Of course, the Big Green probably did not need first-hand experience to make this discovery. Jordan is Penn's leading scorer at 15.9 points per game, and the tri-captain also leads the team in assists with 4.9 per game. "[Boyd] is going to roll up his sleeves and defend [Jordan]," Faucher said. "He's short, but he's really quick. We could try to play a bigger person on him, but Langel is 6'5'' and Brown is 6'8", so then we would have a problem defending them." Dunphy understood Faucher's predicament. "There's no question that Mike is our leader and he's been our leading scorer and really has carried us a lot, but we need to be a good basketball team. Matt Langel can step up and hopefully make some shots? and now that Frank has started to play well and make some shots on the perimeter, he gives us another weapon." Brown was certainly a weapon in the Quakers' last game against Harvard. He scored a season-high 15 points on 6-of-9 shooting and connected on all three of his attempts from beyond the arc. "Everything feels good now and I've been starting on a consistent basis," Brown said. "I was hoping that my senior year would be like this." Since Brown entered the starting lineup on January 28, the Quakers are a perfect 10-0. The senior is shooting 51.3 percent from the field and averaging 6.6 points. "He got hurt on December 29, and it really took him a good six weeks to really get himself back together," Dunphy said. "But when given another opportunity, he's made the most of it."
(02/04/00 10:00am)
The Quakers hope to stave off upstarts Yale and Brown on this weekend's New England swing. When you're an Ivy League basketball player, the last two teams you probably want to face during the same weekend are Penn and Princeton. That is, unless you're a Yale Eli. Yale has managed to beat one of the preeminent Ivy powerhouses every season since 1995-96. And few can forget what kept fans on the edge of their seats during Penn's 73-57 blowout win at Brown last season. It wasn't the on-court action in Rhode Island, but the regular updates from New Haven blaring on the PA as the 1-7 Elis took down the undefeated Princeton Tigers. The year before that, Yale performed a similar feat -- a one-point victory in overtime to hand the Quakers their first Ivy loss of the season. After grabbing its first Big 5 win of the season against St. Joe's last Monday, Penn takes its show on the road tonight, and its first stop is John J. Lee Amphitheater in New Haven, Conn., where both of these shockers took place. "They have snuck up on us in the past, and they've done it to us a few times in my years here," Penn senior Matt Langel said. "We're making that an issue and trying to be as prepared as we can to go up there and win the basketball game." But if the past few games are any indication, Yale might not need luck or surprise attacks to challenge Penn this season. The upstart Elis are 3-1 in the league with wins over Harvard, Brown and Dartmouth. Since Yale is led by new coach James Jones, Penn center Geoff Owens thinks the Elis might have a different attitude going into tonight's contest. "I think they're going to come out hungry," Owens said. "They're not going to come out with a fear or respect for us, they're going to come out expecting to beat us." When describing his team, Jones voiced this expectation. "I really believe that if we go out and give ourselves a chance to win in terms of not turning the ball over and taking care of it and making good decisions, we'll have an opportunity," the first-year coach said. "That's really what you look for, and that's why you go out and play the games." One player the Quakers will have to neutralize if they hope to have their way with the Elis is center Neal Yanke. The junior leads the team in rebounding at eight per game, and his 10 points per outing is good for third among the Elis' scoring leaders. After watching game films of the talented junior, Penn's Oggie Kapetanovic pretty much summed up what the Quakers might see tonight. "He can go off," Kapetanovic said. "He's very athletic and he plays hard." Yanke certainly went off in Yale's last game against Brown. The center scored 29 points on 12-of-19 shooting and also pulled down 13 rebounds. The last time the Quakers journeyed to New Haven, Yanke was the only Eli to score in double figures, contributing 14 of his team's 50 points. "Last year he hurt me a lot with his jump hook, so I'm going to have to respect that," Penn center Geoff Owens said. "Hopefully, I can keep him off the offensive board and not give him a lot of touches." Owens is expecting to guard Yanke, but not without a little help from his friends. "I think its mostly on me, but I'm sure if I front him a little bit then I'll get some help on the back side," he said. Offensively, the Quakers will try to continue the strategy that helped them defeat St. Joe's last Monday. In that game, many of Penn's second-half points came well inside the paint. "Certainly key to what we do is to get it inside and out," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "Whether it's feeding it down there to our post position players or it's our perimeter guys making penetration." Kapetanovic said the win against St. Joe's was important for more than just an offensive tuneup, though. "We needed [the St. Joe's] win. It was a Big 5 win, and it made four in a row," Kapetanovic said. "It's a great way to go on the road, because road games are never easy, especially the second day when you're tired and wary and you basically want to win and go home." For Kapetanovic, such anxieties might be particularly pronounced when the Quakers reach their second destination. The reserve center left Brown in 1997 to join the Red and Blue. He played 51 games in a Bears uniform and started 30 of them. But Kapetanovic said he will not be thinking about his history at Brown when he takes the court on Saturday. "I don't feel like I'm going back there to show them that I can play or anything. The right people up there know why I made this decision, the people who meant something to me, so they know why I did it. I don't have anything to prove. It's just another game going in there trying to do what we do here, which is win," he said. According to Penn guard Matt Langel, one way to accomplish that in Providence is to exploit the Bears' still-evolving, youthful lineup. Four of their starters are underclassmen. "It looks like Brown is playing a lot of younger guys, mixed in with just a few veterans," Langel said. "And it looks like they're running a lot of guys in and out of the game." But judging by the statistics, Brown's youngest players deserve to be fixtures in the lineup. Earl Hunt is averaging 31 minutes per contest, which is time enough for him to score 17.1 points per game. His classmate, Alaivaa Nuualiitia, is averaging 13.7 points in 27.3 minutes of action. So if this young duo poses a challenge to Penn tomorrow, it should come as little surprise to the Quakers. "What [Hunt] brings that is difficult for us is that he just has a knack for scoring and can get himself to the foul line," Dunphy said. "Alaivaa [Nuualiitia] just keeps coming at you. He only may be 6' 6" or 6'6 1/2", but he plays a lot bigger than that. "So both of those guys are making an impact as a freshman, and I'm very impressed with how they've started their freshmen years."
(02/02/00 10:00am)
The Quakers have won four straight since losing by four points at Temple. For the first time this season, the Penn men's basketball team has a winning streak to speak of. The Quakers enter the month of February having won four straight. The streak began January 25 against Drexel and continued through last Monday's win over Big 5 rival St. Joseph's. Prior to that game, however, Penn had not put four wins together since February 20, 1999. "Last year we got a streak going right at the beginning of the Ivy season," Penn senior Geoff Owens said. "We were really hoping to do that again." Owens said the victory over St. Joe's was especially important for the Quakers' morale. "We really didn't want to go O-for the city," he said. Senior Michael Jordan shared his teammate's sentiments, especially considering that Monday was the last Big 5 match-up of his career. "I didn't want us to go winless in the Big 5," Jordan said. "I think I could have had less turnovers and made more shots, but I'm happy that we came away with a win." · Jordan and freshman Ugonna Onyekwe's contributions have been largely responsible for the Quakers' recent success. The duo scored 39 points against the Hawks, while the rest of the team put up just 29 collectively. This effort came after a week in which Jordan's 47 points, 15 rebounds and eight assists led to wins over Drexel, Columbia and Cornell. Those numbers translated into Ivy League Player of the Week honors for the senior, who had already earned the distinction once this season. In the same three games, Onyekwe added 30 points, 24 rebounds and three assists for the Quakers in becoming the Ivy Co-Rookie of the week along with Brown's Earl Hunt. · Penn coach Fran Dunphy feels his team's defense deserves most of the credit for the four-game streak. "[Owens] has been influencing shots, rebounding well and blocking well," Dunphy said. "And Ugonna is becoming a force inside, but he is also stepping out on the perimeter and contesting shots." Dunphy also said that, even though one of Jordan's main strengths is his defense, it can often go unrecognized when compared with his offensive accomplishments. "He's always been a terrific defender who can guard all sorts of people during any game," Dunphy said. "We'll put him on the guys who are really hurting us." · Due mainly to injuries, the Quakers have witnessed a number of personnel changes during the past few games. Since sustaining a concussion against Drexel, freshman Koko Archibong has been absent from the starting lineup, giving senior Frank Brown a spot he has not seen since the Quakers played Kentucky on November 17. Brown had been out with an ankle injury, but appears to have fully recovered. He is averaging about 25 minutes since Archibong's departure. "I'm happy for Frank that he's getting the opportunity to play again after sitting out about six games, but his play could be better on both offense and defense," Dunphy said. "He needs to make better decisions. He walked with the ball [against St. Joe's] at a critical time and you just can't do that." When asked if Brown's poor decision-making could be due to inexperience, Dunphy was hesitant to use that explanation. "He can't get a whole lot more experience," the 11th-year coach said. "He's been in the program for five years now." Dunphy described Archibong's condition as "fine" and said he was optimistic that the freshman will fully recover soon. · One thing that Dunphy was not as optimistic about, however, was his team's free-throw shooting. The Quakers have been stumbling at the charity stripe, recording a less-than-heroic 62 percent for the season. Jordan has been a bright spot at 82 percent, including 16 out of 19 in the past four games. But Owens' 6'11'' frame has cast a bleak shadow at 44 percent from the line. "Last year our team was bad at foul shooting (65 percent), but it was still better than this year, so that really tells you something," Jordan said. "I don't know what the problem is. It's all mental, and it's different for each person. But I know that missing free throws can be contagious, so I hope that we can nip it in the bud and start making them." Dunphy was similarly concerned. "I don't know what to do," Dunphy said. "We talk about it; we don't talk about it; we work on it; we don't work on it. It's an individual concentration thing. I'm not smart enough to figure out what to do about it." For Owens, the upshot of poor foul shooting is a seat on the bench during the final minutes of any close contest. "It's almost embarrassing that I can't be in at the end of the game," the Penn center said. "And I think it hurts our team that I can't be in there." But Owens said his recent performances have convinced him to start revamping his shot. "When you get in a game and there's a little tension, that can make you change your shot and miss," Owens explained. "I'm trying to simplify it so there are less mistakes to be made." · The Quakers will continue their Ivy League play this weekend when they travel to Yale and Brown. Penn had an easy time on this road trip last year, beating the Bears, 73-57, and the Elis, 71-50, but both teams are off to a 3-1 start this season under the leadership of new coaches. "We expect great challenges in both games," Dunphy said. "We've been watching films and they're playing well. Plus, we're going on the road." Dunphy said he will not have a tailor-made strategy for either opponent, though. "I'll worry about what we do first," he said. "If we play consistently on both nights then I'll feel good."
(01/25/00 10:00am)
It is a battle for University City bragging rights tonight at the Palestra. After dropping all three of their Big 5 contests this season, the Penn men's basketball team (5-7) might be questioning whether Philadelphia is really the city that loves you back. But tonight at the Palestra, the Quakers will at least get the chance to see if the slogan applies to University City, when they take on Drexel (7-10) at 8 p.m. The Quakers' most recent loss came at the hands of Temple last Thursday, 44-40, and the Dragons are coming off a weekend road trip where they fell to both New Hampshire, 69-66, and Maine, 100-83. Both the Quakers and Dragons were riding high when they met last season -- each having won twice as many games as they had lost. But although both squads carry losing records going into this year's showdown, the game may be just as important. "They're having an OK season and we're having an OK season, so maybe [tonight] will be a season-breaking game for either one of us," Drexel point guard Bryant Coursey said. Coursey's teammate Mike Kouser agreed, without getting bogged down by records and statistics. "We're really struggling to get a win," Kouser said. "We've lost, what is it three straight? Three out of our last four? Well, it's something bad." Judging by the numbers, both Kouser and Coursey's play will certainly be a factor in which team leaves the Palestra with neighborhood bragging rights. Coursey, a senior co-captain, is averaging 11.6 points and 5.4 assists per game, while Kouser averages 18.2 points and 9.9 rebounds per contest. Penn senior Geoff Owens said that, while the game is not technically a Big 5 contest, it's close enough. "This is essentially a Big 5 game, when you consider their proximity to our campus," Owens said. "We expect that the intensity level will match a Big 5 contest, and we're going to be prepared." But according to Drexel freshman forward Robert Battle, the Dragons consider their exclusion from the City Series to be more than just a matter of semantics. "I take the Big 5 seriously, [even] though we're not in it when we really should be," Battle said. "It shouldn't be the Big 5, it should be the 'City Six' or something. To alienate us from that group is something that has plagued our school for a while. We've been trying to get in for the past few years now, and that's kind of a chip on my shoulder." That's not the only chip on his shoulder. Battle noted that memories of some unpleasant encounters with Penn students might be dancing in his mind when he takes the court tonight. "Just being here at Drexel right next door, this is a big game for me. Coming in, people say that some people from Penn think they're better than we are in general. You know, stuff like that," Battle said. "I spent a little time on Penn's campus myself and, I mean, a couple of people just brushed me off and I was like, 'Dag!' I asked for directions and the person just ignored me. I mean, I won't look at Penn just from one person, but I don't know." According to Coursey, last year's contest with the Quakers is also a bad memory. "They kicked our butt," Coursey said. "A lot of people will be coming [tonight] to try to see us win." Penn beat the Dragons 75-65 in that contest, led by Michael Jordan's season-best 23 points on 10-of-14 shooting. Coursey, who will match up man-to-man with Jordan, said the senior guard is more than just a regular opponent to him. "I've played with Mike since ninth grade. It's great to play against each other in a competitive atmosphere other than summer league, which doesn't really mean anything. It's a lot of fun," Coursey said. Coursey was doubtful, however, that his past experience playing with Jordan will help him tonight. "Mike brings something different every game," he said. "But, hopefully, I can catch on early and defend him." The Dragons are hardly the same team that came to Penn last year, though. For starters, they are now led by new coach Steve Seymour, who took the reigns last April when Bill Herrion left Drexel and took the head coaching job at East Carolina. In addition, senior co-captain Joe Linderman will also be absent this time around. The center, who has been suffering from lower back pain, is currently a candidate for a medical redshirt. The Quakers can breathe a sigh of relief at this development, as he scored 23 points in last year's match-up. Owens said that tonight's offensive strategy will be different from the Quakers' plan for Temple, since the Dragons will play man-to-man against Penn rather than a zone. "We just have to get good shots and make them," Owens said. "But it's not always that simple, obviously."
(04/23/99 9:00am)
The Quakers will try to pull off an upset when they face the No. 4 Orangemen. Even though the Penn men's lacrosse team can do nothing to erase its disappointing six losses this season or its probable exclusion from postseason action, there is still one way that the Quakers (6-6) can make their season memorable. If they beat Syracuse (6-2) on the road tomorrow, the Quakers will accomplish more than just defeating the fourth-ranked team in the country. They will also bring home a victory that no Penn lacrosse team has been able to deliver since 1919. "We have a crew of nine that is kind of realizing that this is the end of our college careers," Penn senior Mark Kleinknecht said. "And maybe things didn't go as well as we wanted for the season but we want to finish out strong. Beating Syracuse is certainly a way to do that. "If we can come out playing the way that we know we can, we can pull off something great and be really excited as we come off the season." In 1919, the Quakers beat the Orangemen, 2-1. Since then, Syracuse has rattled off a 21-0-1 mark against Penn. Last year, the Quakers played well in a 13-9 loss at Franklin Field to a 'Cuse team that ultimately reached the NCAA Final Four. That's hardly a telling fact, however, as Syracuse has been to every Final Four since 1983, winning six championships. At this point in the season, the fundamentals are in place for the Quakers as they have practiced their shooting and ground balls for months. Thus, what may be the deciding factor in whether the Quakers beat Syracuse is their attitude after losing to Villanova on Tuesday. "I would liken this game to the Princeton game, even though that turned out to be a loss," Van Arsdale said, referring to Penn's 9-8 loss to the Tigers on April 6. "We were able to come off a real disappointing Saturday game [against Cornell] and then turn around and play well on a Tuesday." After dropping a close 10-9 contest with the Big Red on April 3, Penn dominated the first half of the Princeton game, leading 7-3 at halftime before ultimately falling to the Tigers. As a result, Van Arsdale said he feels Tuesday's loss to Villanova may actually help Penn's cause against the Orangemen at the Carrier Dome. In looking ahead to the game, he noted that the Quakers may benefit from the post-loss determination that has characterized them in the past. A repeat performance of the intensity the Quakers demonstrated against Princeton will certainly be beneficial, if not necessary, when facing the heavily favored Orangemen. "We didn't have enough time to focus on what happened so instead we just got excited about playing somebody else," Van Arsdale said. "Hopefully, the disappointing loss [to Villanova] will be a real trick for us on Saturday." Something else that could work to the Quakers' advantage is another psychological phenomenon known as "social facilitation," whereby people perform better on well-learned tasks in the presence of an audience. Van Arsdale reported that the Carrier Dome is a site where "you're usually talking about between 5,000 and 10,000 people watching." This could prove especially important to Penn's Kevin Cadin, a Syracuse native. "I'm looking forward to going home. It should be a lot of fun up there," the sophomore said. "I'll have a lot of family there since I only live a couple minutes away from where we're playing." Of course, the flipside to social facilitation is that when a team is outmatched, the crowd can cause nervousness to ensue. Such crowd-induced anxiety is the last thing the Quakers can afford if Syracuse goes with its typical strategy, according to Van Arsdale. "They play a really fast-paced game and they try to get you into a frenetic state," he said. "It's important that we stay calm and poised so that when we possess the ball, we can be patient on offense."
(04/19/99 9:00am)
The Penn men's lacrosse team pulled within 5-4 in the first half but host Brown escaped with a 10-6 victory. Penn men's lacrosse coach Marc Van Arsdale said that he was expecting a "dog fight" in Rhode Island last weekend when the Quakers traveled to Brown for their last Ivy League contest of the season. Unfortunately, Penn rolled over and played dead for several key minutes during the third quarter in a 10-6 loss to the Bears. "After we trailed early on, I thought that we got control of play back during the second quarter," Van Arsdale said. "But then in the third quarter we had a lot of possessions when we didn't score. From there, we had to play catch-up and that is always difficult. We were never able to find the net enough to mount a significant comeback." The Bears (3-7, 2-2 Ivy) outscored Penn 3-1 in the first quarter. Senior All-American Jed DeWick struck first, just 4 1/2 minutes into the game, before Jeff Zuckerman countered for the Red and Blue. But 1-1 was the closest the Quakers came to victory as DeWick would go on to tally three goals and three assists on the afternoon. Zuckerman was hardly satisfied with the team's performance on Saturday, as Penn fell to 2-4 in the Ivies (6-5 overall). "Our offense was there the whole game but we just couldn't shoot," Zuckerman said. "I fell into the category of a person who got a few good looks but couldn't bury them." According to Penn senior Shane Lavery, missed opportunities were the story of the game. While the midfielder was pleased by the Quakers' effort in creating shots, he lamented their inability to capitalize on them, as Penn outshot Brown 36-34 on the day. "I guess it was a matter of efficiency," Lavery said. "We weren't crisp out there and we didn't take advantage of every opportunity. We don't have the talent to waste opportunities like that, we need them all." But shooting was not the only area where the Quakers came up short. Van Arsdale, Lavery and Zuckerman all expressed dissatisfaction at the number of ground balls that Penn controlled. The Bears actually trailed Penn in this category, 50-39, but according to Van Arsdale, more of Brown's possessions translated into goals. "They were sharper on ground balls," he said. "In tough situations, they were able to come away with the ball and that led to a couple of goals. They were able to capitalize on their opportunities, even though they may have had less of them." The Quakers put together a strong second quarter, matching Brown's three goals with three of their own -- one each by Bart Hacking, Kevin Cadin and Todd Minerley. Minerley's goal with 8:10 remaining in the half pulled Penn within one, 5-4. But Brown's Todd McNarama increased the Bears' lead back to two on a goal just 15 seconds before the break. Brown opened the scoring 8:40 into the second half and took an 8-4 lead just over a minute later. Pete Janney brought Penn within three at 11:19 but Jimmy Mormile scored his second goal of the half and DeWick completed his hat trick as the Bears built a 10-5 lead. Lavery picked up the game's final goal at 8:22 to make it 10-6. "Both the offense and the defense didn't have what it takes to beat Brown," Lavery said. "It wasn't like one guy beat us out there all the time and we couldn't stop him." Brown's Rob Lyle is the guy that usually beats opponents. Lyle leads the Bears in scoring with 22 points. But according to Van Arsdale, Penn senior tri-captain Ziggy Majumdar effectively shut down the senior attacker. "We knew that we had to key in on a few people like Rob," Zuckerman said. "Ziggy really did a great job. He played one of the best games that I've seen him play all year." Unfortunately, DeWick filled in where Lyle was missing. "We weren't bad but we weren't playing at our best and I think that they were," Van Arsdale said. "Some of their kids really came through. They got a huge performance out of Jed DeWick." A win in Providence could have guaranteed Penn a third-place Ivy finish and a probable spot in post-season action but now the Quakers' future is uncertain. With games against Villanova and two top 10 teams -- No. 4 Syracuse and No. 6 Delaware -- remaining on the schedule, however, Van Arsdale feels there is "still something to play for." "In the big picture, the loss [against Brown] was a little disappointing," the third-year coach said. "But one of the best things about this group has been their ability to put tough things behind them."
(03/31/99 10:00am)
The Penn men's lacrosse players who are also in FIJI spent eight days in a hotel. Any athlete can tell you that playing on the road means sacrificing more than just fan support. The adjustment to travel and hotel accommodations can result in sluggish play, even for the most resilient team. "It's always easier to play at home, but road trips are a part of the season and something that you have to deal with," Penn men's lacrosse player Brett Bodner said. "If you want to be a good team, you should really get off the bus and play." Bodner and many of his teammates may be more familiar with such road woes than the average Quaker. As residents of the Phi Gamma Delta house that was evacuated on Sunday, March 21, these players endured road-game-like conditions for a mid-season span of eight days. The brothers were forced to move into a hotel after the alcohol-related death of a Penn alumnus at the house. "It's tough, particularly because it's just one more thing we have to worry about," Bodner said of the move. "At one point, I think there were like three rooms for 19 guys. It was just one more concern and something that we'd like to put behind us. A lot of guys have moved back into their old rooms and they're just trying to get over it." According to coach Marc Van Arsdale, the Quakers have done just that. While acknowledging that the disruption was impossible for his players to ignore, the second-year coach gave credit to his seniors for maintaining the team's focus. "I don't think it's been been that much of a factor," Van Arsdale said of the incident. "It's naive to say that it wasn't on anyone's mind, but our loss to Harvard was from a lack of execution, not a lack of focus." "I think that all of the players and the coaches have improved from last year in terms of focusing on what we have to do," senior Ziggy Majumdar said. "We've done a good job separating what happens on the field with what goes on off the field." · Falling 8-7 in overtime to Harvard last weekend dropped Penn out of first place in the Ivy League standings and allowed the Crimson to rise to the top. The Quakers (5-2, 1-1 Ivy League) are now in second place. "I think on the whole that we're a deeper team [than Harvard] and I definitely think we should have won," Bodner said. "I think that we took them too lightly, to be honest. We were ready to play but I think that confidence just slowly drifted into a form of arrogance. We didn't have the right respect for them when they came out and took it to us." "We learned to never let your guard down," Majumdar said. "You have to pay attention to the little things." The Quakers may be feeling the effects of that tough loss but the next opponents on their schedule can certainly empathize. Penn faces Cornell this Saturday and the Big Red are coming off a one-goal loss to Yale, 7-6. What's more, Penn has had a solid week to prepare for the Big Red -- a rare stretch without games that Van Arsdale feels will help on Saturday. "It gives us the opportunity to go hard for a few days straight in practice," Van Arsdale said. "We don't usually have that kind of opportunity." · At the midpoint of their season, the Quakers have noted striking differences between this year's squad and the team that won just four games last season, particularly on the defensive end. Matt Schroeder is leading the Quakers in net, allowing just 6.65 goals per game. But according to the senior, Penn's overall defense is much improved -- not in strategy or positioning, but in attitude. "I've seen a lot of changes in terms of the team unity. The team defense has made an incredible jump," Schroeder said. "I think it's different now that we have guys like Mike Kehoe and Shane Lavery. Those guys want to be playing defense whereas last year? guys might have been thinking about getting goals. "Those guys know that they want to be playing defense first and they can get their goals in transition. That's what's going to help the team. We haven't changed anything as far as offense and defense, it's just that everyone's not trying to score goals. Guys know that as long as the team gets the goal, we're all better off."
(03/23/99 10:00am)
The 14th-ranked Penn men's lacrosse team faces historical victim Lafayette at home on Franklin Field today. Judging by the national standings, a Penn men's lacrosse fan might think the 14th-ranked Quakers are looking ahead to upcoming contests with such powerhouses as No. 12 Princeton and No. 16 Cornell. But ask senior Jeff Zuckerman and the midfielder will tell you that as far as he is concerned, the biggest game on Penn's schedule occurs today on Franklin Field, against the Lafayette Leopards. According to Zuckerman, it is this one-game-at-a-time outlook that has propelled the Quakers to a 4-1 record, 1-0 in the Ivy League. "I think what we've tried to do and what is different about this year is we've kept the big picture out of play. It's been a key to our success," Zuckerman said. "Right now, the biggest game on the schedule is Lafayette and we're not going to worry about who is coming up on the weekend. We'll worry about that at around 9:00 tomorrow night." If Lafayette were truly the toughest challenge Penn would face this year and if the past were any indication, the Quakers would have a pretty manageable season ahead. Since their first meeting with the Leopards in 1927, the Quakers have compiled a 32-5 lifetime record against Lafayette. Penn is 5-0 against the Leopards since the teams resumed play after a 22-year break between 1971 and 1993. Penn goalkeeper Matt Schroeder made a big contribution to last year's win, stopping 21 shots en route to a 16-4 victory over the Leopards. This season, Schroeder has maintained his success in net. His 15-save performance against Yale last Saturday earned the Quaker Ivy League Player of the Week honors. In addition, he was named ECAC Goalie of the Week yesterday. "As long as the team is winning, I'll take the award," Schroeder said. "They don't mean as much when we're losing but this one felt good." The Quakers have never lost to Lafayette with Schroeder in goal. "They have some good athletes but they don't have a ton of depth," the Penn senior said. "We've beaten them basically every year, usually by a few goals." But according to Zuckerman, just as the Quakers cannot focus too heavily on the future, they also cannot rely on past performances. "We've pretty much prepared for them as we've done for every team," Zuckerman said. "It doesn't matter what we've done with them in the past. We're only interested about tomorrow and being successful tomorrow. "Success will come from doing the same thing that we've done no matter who we're playing -- watching game films, scouting them real hard, trying to become familiar with what they're going to try to do and how we're going to counterattack that." Past performance may actually be a poor means for predicting today's outcome as the the Quakers have certainly distinguished themselves from the squad that journeyed to Easton, Pa., last season. Penn's four victories to date equal its win total from the 1998 season. "Everyone is just playing a lot better this year," Schroeder said. "The attitudes are different and we're all out there playing for the same goal." "We know what we want and we're going after it pretty hard," Schroeder said. "Last year, we didn't realize that we had to earn it every game. This year we understand that people aren't just going to hand us anything." "I think we're just going to try to come out with the same intensity that we had [against Yale] and try to be as sharp as possible," Zuckerman said of today's game. "Hopefully we'll put the ball in the back of the net and also play some strong team defense."
(03/17/99 10:00am)
Diana Caramanico became the second Quaker ever to win the Ivy's top award. Mandy West also made the All-Ivy first team. Anyone who watched the Penn women's basketball team in action this season could tell that the key to stopping this year's squad was as simple as stopping two individuals -- senior guard Mandy West and sophomore forward Diana Caramanico. But judging by the statistics, containing these two Quakers was not that simple. West and Caramanico combined for 1,110 points, 60.7 percent of Penn's total points this season. While their production did not earn the Quakers an Ivy League title, their individual achievements did not go unrecognized. Both players were named first-team All-Ivy and Caramanico became just the second player in Penn history to earn Ivy League Player of the Year. "Both Mandy and Diana's numbers really impressed me," outgoing Penn coach Julie Soriero said. "It wasn't a situation where we were beating teams by 20 points and we kept them in to boost their averages up. They scored those points in close games and against teams who were really keying in on them." Caramanico finished the season with averages of 22.7 points and 12.8 rebounds per game, setting numerous records in the process. The forward led the Ivy League in scoring and rebounding and ranked among the nation's best post players, climbing as high as second on the NCAA Division I rebounding list and seventh among scoring leaders at times this season. Caramanico broke the Penn record for rebounds in a season by grabbing 333, while her career-high 37 points against Brown marked the third-most points scored in a game by a player wearing the Red and Blue. Caramanico was also the 12th Quaker to reach the 1,000 point milestone and the first to do so as a sophomore. Caramanico's 1999 numbers were improvements over the stellar numbers -- 20.2 points and 10.0 rebounds -- that earned her Ivy Rookie of the Year last season. She will go down in Penn's history as the first player to be named both Rookie and Player of the Year. Despite her prolific scoring and success on the boards, Caramanico still seemed pleasantly surprised to receive the Ivy League's most prestigious award. "Usually the third-place team doesn't get the Player of the Year. I thought there were some strong candidates from Dartmouth and Princeton," she said. "I was talking to [Soriero] with about three weeks left in the season and she said that I was in the running but that a lot of things had to go our way and that it really depended on how the teams finished up. To be honest, if we hadn't beaten Princeton I don't think that it would have come my way." Kirsten Brendel, who won the award in '91, is the only other Quaker to win Player of the Year honors. "Kirsten was the same as Diana in terms of her learning curve and improvement curve," Soriero said. "I would place [Diana] in the same category with Kirsten. I think she will go down as one of the best in the league." Caramanico often had room to maneuver in the paint because opponents channeled their defensive pressure on Penn's best perimeter scorer, Mandy West. After spending a transfer year on the sidelines, the junior guard made an immediate contribution -- draining three pointers, slashing through defenders and hitting free throws with impressive accuracy. West's performances established her as one of the league's top scorers, twice earning her Ivy Player of the Week honors. "Mandy is one of the best guards I've seen in the Ivy League and definitely one of the best to play at Penn," Soriero said. "What puts her above other guards is her consistent shooting, her speed and her ball handling." By the end of the season, West's 20 points per game placed her 26th in the nation in scoring. Her 85 percent accuracy from the free throw line was the third-best ever by a Quaker and good for 15th among Division I players. "Mandy wanted the ball in close games. She wanted to go to the line," Soriero said. "To put up a free throw percentage in the 80s in close games is really impressive. She is just a competitor." Despite her status as a transfer student, West was chosen captain of the '98-99 Quakers, who recorded a 12-14 overall record and an 8-6 Ivy mark to place third in the league. According to sophomore guard Erin Ladley, West had no trouble assuming this leadership role. "She picked up where Colleen [Kelly] and Michelle [Maldonado] left off," Ladley said in reference to last year's senior captains. "She brought her competitiveness to the court and helped us. She fit in better and improved as the season progressed. And as she improved, we improved as a team." But according to Soriero, West made her presence known before she ever stepped on the court. "I think Mandy proved to people that she deserved to be captain during her first year when she sat out. She worked really hard and she never pouted about the fact that all she could do was practice. She was the epitome of a team player." While this year's third-place finish may have disappointed some Quakers fans, the good news is that both West and Caramanico will be back in uniform next season. "I want to win the Ivy League," Caramanico emphasized. "The personal awards are nice and all but I want a banner in the Palestra that says 'Women's Basketball Champions' and right now there are none up there."
(02/25/99 10:00am)
Center Geoff Owens returns, with jaw wired, in search of the Penn record for blocked shots. Penn junior Geoff Owens takes the floor this weekend at the Palestra just four blocked shots shy of the Quakers record for blocks in a season, which stands at 52. Unfortunately, if Owens accomplishes this feat, he will have few words for his adoring fans at the post-game press conference. Due to the fractured jaw that he suffered against the Big Green Saturday, Owens' mouth is wired shut. Penn was without its pivotman against Villanova and his absence was certainly felt in the paint. The Wildcats came away with nine blocks, seven from Malik Allen alone, while the Quakers did not reject a single shot. "We would have loved to have had him [against Villanova] but we didn't," Penn coach Fran Dunphy. "His pain is not as bad as it was. It's the stuffiness in his nose which keeps him from breathing well that is really the critical issue. If the congestion clears up, he's going to be OK. We'll see how far he can go on Friday and Saturday. We're not sure. There are still a lot of unanswered questions at this point." · Too often, the charity stripe has been the place where Penn generously gives points to its opponent while squandering opportunities to increase its own point total. With Owens sidelined against Villanova, Penn struggled to draw fouls inside. "We need to get our shots at the line," senior Paul Romanczuk said. "We could have been more aggressive and drawn more fouls." Whereas the Wildcats were able to capitalize on 74.2 percent of their attempts for 23 points, the Quakers earned only five points on 10 attempts. But more attempts do not necessarily spell more points for the Quakers. Penn is shooting just 65.9 percent from the line and sits sixth in the Ivy League in that department. "We work on free throws in practice and some of the guys don't even make them then," junior Michael Jordan said. "I mean, it's something you have to practice on your own. You have to get out there and shoot them. It's definitely a problem because when games come down to the wire, it comes down to free throws. If you can't make them, you're not going to win." But as much trouble as Penn has been having from the line, this weekend's opponents -- Cornell (63.9 percent) and Columbia (61.9 percent) -- are even less accurate. · While the Quakers may be faltering from 15 feet, Penn's perimeter shooters have certainly found their rhythm from behind the arc. The Red and Blue are 13th in the nation and lead the Ivy League in three-point shooting at 39.1 percent, due mainly to Jordan (38.1 percent), Matt Langel (43.0 percent) and Jed Ryan (42.6 percent). Frank Brown's hot hand has also helped the Quakers, but in limited minutes. The senior leads the Ivies at 52.4 percent from downtown, but he has only attempted 21 shots. Treys are hardly a new weapon for Penn, though. The Quakers were third in the country last year at 42.4 percent. · In compiling their 18-5 record, the Ivy League-leading Quakers have averaged 70.3 points per contest while holding their opponents to 60.3. Their .783 winning percentage places them 20th in the nation and they rank 13th in scoring defense. With their final appearance at the Palestra steadily approaching, Dunphy and the Quakers hope that Penn fans will flock to see the first-place squad in action. "We need student support as best we can get it. I can't tell you the value that it gives to these guys as they go through their playing careers here," Dunphy said. "I think that they appreciate the student support even more than the everyday fan that comes and watches us because it's their peers and they really want to feel like they're doing something for the institution." "I would love for the fans to come out in full effect because this is our last home weekend," Romanczuk said. "I would love it if this gym were packed every night that we came out because the crowd plays a big factor. When we're out there, it's great to hear them yelling and screaming for us." In addition to honoring the Penn seniors and their families in the final home game this Saturday, the 1979 Quakers -- who made the Final Four -- will also be recognized on their 20th anniversary season.
