Search Results
Below are your search results. You can also try a Basic Search.
(01/21/00 10:00am)
With the return of Kathie Dykes, Penn looks to win its second straight. The Penn women's swimming team will drop anchor in Annapolis tomorrow afternoon, and the Quakers hope that they'll have their second victory in a row by the time they set sail for home. After defeating Army last Saturday, the Quakers (4-3, 1-3 Ivy League) will try to go two-for-two against the Armed Forces when they face Navy (5-4) at noon. But the Quakers team that the Midshipmen will host will be a tired one. Penn has continued its intensive winter break training regimen over this first week of classes in an effort to prepare for their critical meet against Dartmouth a week from tomorrow. The meet in Hanover, N.H., will represent Penn's final realistically winnable Ivy meet. This is a showdown that the Quakers have repeatedly pointed to as the most important of the second semester. "We're still working hard. Look at their faces. They're tired," Penn coach Mike Schnur said of his swimmers. "We're not as concerned with this meet, we're much more concerned with next week. The focus of our dual meet season the rest of the time is Dartmouth. So we train hard this week, and we'll rest a day or two next week. Still, Schnur does not want his Quakers to look too far ahead. "Does that mean we're going into Navy with the expectation to lose? No," Schnur said. "We're going to go in and compete great this week. They're going to be tired also. It'll be pretty fair." Schnur's swimmers are pumped as well. "We're so ready for Navy," Penn junior captain Cathy Holland said. "We're ready to get up and race. That's what we've done the last couple weekends." Penn and Navy have had one common opponent so far this season. The Midshipmen beat Army at the beginning of December by a scant four points, while Penn defeated Army by 40 last week. But as anybody familiar with the Army-Navy football game knows, that rivalry is unique. Thus, the two bestings of the Cadets may be like apples and oranges. "We beat Army by more than they did, but their dual meet was a different type of meet, because they get up for it more. Navy-Army's their biggest meet of the year, so the times are unrepresentative," Schnur said. One factor that may hinder the Quakers' performance tomorrow will be the fact that Navy's pool dimensions are based on meters, whereas the dimensions of Penn's Sheerr Pool are based on yards. All of the events in tomorrow's meet will be in meters, which means that some events will be longer or shorter than what the Quakers are used to. "It's a tougher meet," Schnur said. "That will be a different dynamic that the women will have to deal with, the fact that we're swimming meters and not yards this week. They only have a meter pool. U.S. Government dollars at work." A metric event that the Quakers are used to competing in is diving, and in this area they will enjoy the return to action of sophomore Kathie Dykes, who won the one-meter and three-meter diving events last Saturday against Army. Dykes was absent from competition last semester to concentrate on her studies, and her return should put some more points on the board. A natural diver, she will complement the valiant freshman Sue Breslin, who began diving for the first time ever last semester to help make up for Dykes' absence. "Sue was filling in and really came through for the team all first semester," Schnur said. "She barely lost to the two Army girls. She was right there with them. It's nice to have Kathie back also. She's a good diver and doing a good job for us." Penn has not beaten Navy in several years, but the women's team is noticeably stronger than in years past, which means that Navy may be in for more of a fight tomorrow. "It's going to be much closer of a meet for us," Holland said. "[We need to] just swim as hard as we can, knowing we've been putting in all this training." "Two or three years ago, they were way better than we were," Schnur said. "The balance of power has shifted greatly. We're much closer. If we don't win, it's going to be an awfully close meet."
(01/17/00 10:00am)
The Penn men's and women's swimming teams are hoping that their grueling winter break has prepared them for the long, tough road ahead. With the men's 166-77 convincing victory over Army and with the women's 169-129 besting of those same Cadets this past Saturday afternoon at Sheerr Pool, the Quakers look as if they are already reaping the dividends of their toil. The men's win improved their record to 5-1 (2-1 Ivy) on the still-youthful season. It was also the first time that Penn beat the Cadets in a quarter of a century. They last beat them on February 15, 1975, by a score of 65-48. The Quakers prevailed on the strength of the performances received from freshmen Spencer Driscoll and Nate Pinney. Driscoll, who has become an extremely productive member of the Red and Blue, recorded victories in the 200-yard individual medley and the 200 butterfly, while Pinney triumphed in the 500 and 1,000 freestyles. "As a freshman, I wasn't really taken into the tradition as much, because we had lost to Army for the last 25, 26 years," Driscoll said. "It's always meant a lot. [Penn] Coach [Mike] Schnur was really into it, as were some of the upperclassmen." After years of close losses to the Cadets, the Quakers were encouraged by not only beating Army, but also by doing it so handily. "Coach has been telling us that this is the strongest team he's seen in four or five years," Driscoll said. "And since we haven't beaten Army in 25 years, maybe it's been that long since we've had a team this strong. "Everyone's just really improving and working hard. Coach Schnur now, instead of [former Penn coach] Kathy Lawlor-Gilbert, has kind of changed the mentality of the team in the way we look at training and working with each other." The Quakers were busy before hosting the Cadets. They took the short walk over to Drexel on January 8 and came away with a victory, 139-98, their fourth of the season. The Drexel meet came in the middle of the Quakers' winter break training, and Driscoll referred to it as a "training meet." "It wasn't a big meet," Driscoll said. "People didn't swim their good events, so you just went into it trying to do as well as you could." The Quakers are especially happy with their performance against the Cadets due to the fact that the Penn swimmers only had about a week of winter break before returning to campus to train and swim in two meets. The training, which has been more intensive than training normally done during the semester, has been primarily geared towards preparing for the rest of their challenging Ancient Eight campaign. Perhaps the biggest benefit of the exhausting training, however, did not necessarily show up on the scoreboard. "As well as making everyone tired, [the training] brought the team together," Driscoll said. "Everyone's tired, but everyone goes, and we're all in it together. Since housing is closed, we all stay in houses together. It's a real team bonding experience." The Penn women's victory against Army improved their season record to 4-3 (1-3 Ivy) and to 2-1 on the new year. Penn, which had last defeated Army in 1996, received a multitude of outstanding performances, including junior captain Cathy Holland's victories in the 200-yard backstroke and the 200 individual medley. Impressive freshman Kate Patrizzi also won two events, the 100 and 200 flys. "Basically, the girls had a great meet," Holland said. "Everybody was really excited. There was lots of cheering, and lots of positive attitudes." Penn defeated host Drexel on January 8, 132-97, in their first meet of the new year. The versatile Holland captured the 500 and 1000 freestyles, and the increasingly vital Patrizzi won the 100 breaststroke. The next day, the Quakers traveled to Cambridge to take on Ivy power Harvard and were destroyed, 223-72, constituting their third Ivy loss of the season. Patrizzi was the lone victor for Penn, winning the 200 fly. But Holland feels that the loss to the Crimson is not an indication of how far the Quakers have to go to reach elite status in the Ivies. "[The loss] basically just said that we've been training hard the past two weeks," she said. "We were all pretty tired. I don't think it really told us much more than that. "I'd say these past three meets have all kind of had the same tone to them. We're swimming tired. That transition's tough, to go from training to racing, but I think all the girls have done a great job of doing that. I think Army proved that." There's little rest for the Penn swimmers, as both the men and women travel to Annapolis, Md., Saturday to take on Navy.
(12/14/99 10:00am)
The Penn men's swimming team's meet with Columbia took up a good portion of Saturday afternoon and was comprised of 13 events. But the meet was really over only a few minutes after it began. The Quakers thoroughly enjoyed dismantling the Lions, 146-88, in their Ivy home opener at Sheerr Pool. The victory lifted the Red and Blue's overall record to 3-1 and their Ivy record to an encouraging 2-1. Penn dominated the Lions all day, winning all but two swimming events -- the 200-yard breaststroke and the 400 free relay, both of which were won by Columbia long after the outcome of the meet was decided. In fact, the Quakers were so overpowering that their swimmers placed first, second and third in an astounding five events, including the 500 freestyle in which Penn's slowest swimmer finished a whopping 13 seconds ahead of the Lions' fastest. The first event of the meet, the 400 medley relay, was won by a Penn squad made up of representatives from each class: freshman Spencer Driscoll, sophomore Kenneth Goh, junior Vincent Connors and senior Matt Reilly. Quickly, the Quakers were out to a 13-4 lead. Penn had the match in hand by the fifth event, racing to a 74-19 lead. By the time the three-meter diving event rolled around, the Quakers had a 143-44 lead and were on the verge of beating their hated rivals by 100 points. Only the Lions' late spurt saved them from a triple-digit defeat. "Columbia was an embarrassment," senior Jon Maslow said. "They didn't even show for the meet, basically. If I was them, I would have been pretty embarrassed. That was supposed to be a really close meet and they just rolled over?. It kind of gets to be a joke after a while, when the other team kinda rolls over and plays dead." "After the first set of diving, they pretty much gave up," Driscoll said. "Our first couple events were really great and just psyched out Columbia. It was kind of a disappointment that it wasn't closer." Columbia, which hosted Fordham on Friday night before traveling to Philadelphia to face the Quakers, sat their nationally ranked sprinter Gered Doherty after the 400 medley relay against Penn. Although Doherty won the 50 and 100 freestyle against Fordham, he only swam the opening race against Penn. "[Doherty], their best sprinter, was supposedly sick, although half of our guys are also sick, so I don't know how well that bides as an excuse," Maslow said. "He's the only one that really sat. The rest of them swam, they just didn't swim very well." Among the many standout performances for the Quakers was that of junior Blake Martin. Martin beat his closest competitor by 43 seconds in the 1650 freestyle with a time of 15:57.6, his best time ever in that event. Other standout performances came from Maslow, who won the 50 and 100 freestyle, and Driscoll, who won the 200 individual medley and the 200 fly. Penn does not swim again until January 8, when the Quakers face Drexel, but after this triumph they can feel good about themselves going into the break. "We really embarrassed them, which was fun," Maslow said. "It's really fun to just send them home packing after a while."
(12/14/99 10:00am)
With the Penn band playing and with the deafening cheers of Quakers fans reverberating off the walls of the hot, humid building, one could have mistaken Sheerr Pool for the Palestra on Friday night if it weren't for two important facts: One, while the Quakers scored over 100 points, no free cheesesteaks were awarded; and two, it was the Penn women's swimming team that was the main attraction, despite the fact that the Quakers were trounced by Columbia, 189-108. Penn's record fell to 2-2 overall and 1-2 in Ivy competition. Perhaps the loudest performance -- other than the band's rendition of "Call Me Al" -- was that of U.S. Olympian Christina Teuscher, Columbia's superstar swimmer and captain. Although she only swam in three individual events and one relay event, Teuscher let everyone know why she is the best swimmer in the country. Teuscher put on a show. In her last race of the night, the senior finished the 400-yard individual medley in 4:15 -- not only the fastest time in the nation this year, but 27 seconds ahead of Penn's fastest swimmer, Margaret Jones at 4:42. The time was also a sizable 17 seconds better than the Penn school record, held by junior captain Cathy Holland. "As a swimming purist, someone who's been involved with swimming my whole life, I love watching her swim, because she's so good," Penn coach Mike Schnur said. "She's the Michael Jordan of the Ivy League." "I was happy with that," Teuscher said of her showing in the event. "I was in a lot of pain before going into it, so I was a little nervous." Despite the loss, the Quakers seemed happy with their showing, especially considering the fact that many swimmers could not participate due to illness, not to mention that the team, as a whole, was tired. "People were really tired today, and everybody still swam hard and did well," Holland said. "I think it's a very good indication of where we're going to be next year." Holland won the 200 breaststroke with a time of 2:27.1, and freshman Kathleen Patrizzi continued to impress with a victory in the 100 butterfly. And, despite finishing last, freshman Sue Breslin, with a bad back and a burned hand, noticeably improved in the one-meter diving event. One of Penn's goals going into Friday's meet was to have swimmers participate in events that they were not necessarily used to swimming, and the Quakers were happy with the results. Among Penn's successful events was Katie Kowalski's 500 freestyle and Kay O'Meara's 1650 freestyle. The Quakers head into the break at a respectable .500 and will not compete again until they swim at Drexel on January 8. And the Quakers can celebrate the New Year confident in the knowledge that they are making progress. "The Penn team is much improved, it was good to see," Columbia coach Diana Caskey said. "They seem like a different team from prior years, in their enthusiasm, the strength of their front-line swimmers and just the way they approach the meets."
(12/06/99 10:00am)
Two weeks, two wins and too much for Georgetown. The Penn women's swimming team easily handled the Hoyas Saturday afternoon at Sheerr Pool, 182-109, in front of a large contingent of Quakers supporters. With the win, Penn improved to 2-1 on the young season (1-1 Ivy) and looks forward to hosting Ivy foe Columbia this Friday. The Quakers' home opener featured a multitude of standout performances, perhaps the most outstanding of which was junior Cathy Holland's. Penn's captain finished first in both the 1000-yard freestyle and 200 breaststroke with times of 10:38.4 and 2:25.9, respectively. She set a personal record in the latter event while missing sophomore teammate April Fletcher's school record by approximately .6 seconds. "It was a great swim considering it was the first time she's swum the event for real in two years," Penn coach Mike Schnur said. "That was probably the highlight swim [of the meet]," Fletcher said. Other outstanding performances on the day included sophomore Devin McGlynn's wins in the 100 and 200 freestyle and freshman Katie Patrizzi's first-place finish in the 200 fly with a time of 2:07.4. "For her to go 2:07 unrested is a very, very good swim," Schnur said. "It's a heck of a lot faster than she ever went in high school." Patrizzi -- who recently qualified for the Junior Nationals -- was joined by a number of other successful freshmen. Margaret Jones finished first in the 200 individual medley; Lauren Dawe won the 100 backstroke; and Jessica Anders was tops in the 50 freestyle. In addition, the freshmen are contributing to the success Penn has had in relay swimming this year. Saturday was no different, as Patrizzi and Anders joined McGlynn and sophomore Adriana Pentz on the first-place 200 medley relay team. The team that won the 200 free relay was also made up of two sophomores and two freshmen. "The freshmen are all swimming awesome, they're training really hard. They're really doing well," Fletcher said. "It's nice to have a young team." The Hoyas, who were only minimally rested last week in practice, seemed to be hindered all day by a lack of swimming depth. The third-fastest Georgetown swimmer was routed in many events. "They had six or seven good, solid women who definitely could swim for us," Schnur said. "But their backup girls are nowhere near the level ours are, so their girls who were their number one swimmer in each event were pretty strong, but their number two and number threes maybe weren't as strong as ours." That, combined with the fact that Penn consistently beat Georgetown's top swimmers by taking first place in every swimming event, allowed the Quakers to soundly trounce the Hoyas. Penn's win is impressive considering that its swimmers practiced hard last week. This was not the case earlier in the season, since the Quakers rested the week before the meet with Cornell and Princeton. "We had a lot of really good swims considering that a lot of people were really tired from a hard week of practice," Fletcher said. In fact, the only spheres in which the Hoyas finished in the top spot were the one-meter and three-meter diving contests, where they accumulated 26 points to Penn's six. "They're a good group of kids. They're strong, they're pretty deep, and hopefully they'll be more competitive in the Ivy League," Georgetown coach Bethany Bower said of the Quakers. "We knew we were outmanned going in." The Quakers themselves might be outmanned come Friday, when Columbia, led by Christina Teuscher -- possibly the nation's best collegiate swimmer and an Olympic gold medalist -- invades Philadelphia Friday evening. Schnur intends to give his team another week of intense practice, and although he acknowledges that the Quakers have very little chance of taming the Lions next week, he is happy with what he is seeing. "We swam better than I thought we would," Schnur said. "They're gaining confidence every week. And they're swimming better and better."
(12/03/99 10:00am)
The Quakers, who snapped their 42-meet Ivy losing streak against Cornell, face the Hoyas tomorrow. Thanksgiving fell in between the Penn women's swimming team's last meet and its home opener with Georgetown tomorrow at 1 p.m. at the Sheerr Pool. And if the ending of their 42-meet Ivy losing streak in that last meet was a figurative breaking of the Thanksgiving wishbone early, the Quakers see swimming against the Hoyas as a belated dessert. With their second-place finish -- eight points ahead of third-place Cornell and 53 points behind first-place Princeton -- in the November 20 meet, the Quakers ended six years of Ivy frustration and experienced a catharsis that they hope will propel them through the rest of the season. The result of tomorrow's faceoff against a beatable Georgetown squad will be the Quakers' first chance to see if they can become accustomed to their winning ways. During the last two weeks of practice, the Quakers have reacted well to their early-season success, using it to instill a more upbeat attitude in themselves. "Last year we went into the [Cornell] meet and really wanted to win it, and we didn't, and it was really tough after that," sophomore Devin McGlynn said. "But this year? we're acting more positive. We're definitely more positive than we have been in prior years." The Hoyas have had an average season thus far and are coming off of a decisive 133-106 loss to Rider November 20. Because of this, the Quakers believe they have reason to feel confident. "They're a good team, but we could definitely beat them," McGlynn said. "We're a much stronger team than they are. In every event, basically, looking at their statistics and ours, we can beat them. We have more depth. We have more girls that can go faster than they can." Penn and Georgetown, however, have jointly asked for exhibition heats to take place tomorrow. This suggests that the Hoyas have been resting their swimmers in practice this week leading up to their date with the Quakers. With the Hoyas having rested their swimmers, their team, will most likely be in top condition. For this reason, McGlynn thinks the meet will be tightly contested. "[By resting their athletes], they have more energy and they swim faster," she said. "It should be a pretty good meet." Given this, any kind of letdown coming off of the Cornell win might well doom the Quakers to a loss to a statistically inferior team. Despite this possibility, Penn feels considerably less tension going into this meet than it experienced against Cornell two weeks ago. "Cornell was a lot of fun, but it was also so stressful. We were all so nervous. We all wanted to win so bad," McGlynn said. "We're really looking to have fun [tomorrow]." A Quakers win tomorrow would give them a 2-1 mark on the young season and would put them in great shape going into their first home Ivy meet of the season, against Columbia next Friday night. "Two wins in a row would definitely be a great thing for us," McGlynn said.
(11/22/99 10:00am)
The Penn women's swimming team took the monkey hanging on its back and left it to drown in Princeton's Denunzio Pool when it edged Cornell in its season opener on Saturday, 153-145. The win over Cornell was Penn's first in its last 42 Ivy meets, a streak that spanned six years. And if not for an exciting finish and clutch performance by Penn's 400-meter freestyle relay, whose victory decided the overall outcome, the Quakers would still be mired in that losing streak. Penn's four fastest freestylers, freshmen Jessica Anders and Katy Sanderson and sophomores April Fletcher and Devin McGlynn, finished with a combined time of 3:34.72 -- less than a second ahead of Cornell's squad -- to give their team a win in the meet. "They swam really, really well," Penn coach Michael Schnur said. "[It was] the fastest dual-meet 400 free relay we've ever had." As Penn swam its way to victory, the scene on the side of the pool was pandemonium. As the rest of the women's team, many parents and the entire men's team cheered on the final relay, they were joined by Princeton's women's swimming team, marking the rare occasion that the orange and black root for the Red and Blue. According to Penn junior swimmer and team captain Cathy Holland, Princeton -- with the meet in hand -- pulled its swimmers from the final event to put the focus solely on Penn-Cornell. This is not to say, however, that the Quakers' win was due solely to the victory in the 400-meter freestyle relay; indeed, Penn saw many standout performances on the day. For instance, Holland set a school record in the 400-meter individual medley and missed breaking the school record in the 200-meter individual medley by just 6/100ths of a second. The Quakers also received help from their freshmen en route to the victory. In addition to the two freshmen who helped the 400-meter freestyle relay team pull off the win, Kathleen Patrizzi turned in a strong performance in her first collegiate meet, placing second in the 200-meter fly and qualifying for the junior nationals. Penn's day, however, might have been best exemplified by freshman Susan Breslin's performance in the one- and three-meter diving events. Recruited for swimming but volunteering to dive this year because of Penn's lack of any true divers, Breslin placed third in the three-meter event, and her four points were instrumental in the victory. "She showed a lot of heart and a lot of dedication to the team by doing something she hasn't done in a long time," Schnur said. While the Quakers ended up losing to Princeton in the three-way meet, their focus going into the weekend was a vulnerable Big Red squad whom they came close to knocking off last year. "We paid no attention to Princeton at all. They weren't the target. All we wanted to do was to beat Cornell," Schnur said. With the win over the Cornell, Penn achieved its main goal this semester -- winning an Ivy meet -- on the first day of the season, which will imbue the members of the team with motivation and confidence going into Georgetown in two weeks. For now, however, the Quakers can savor their long-awaited Ivy win. "As soon as we found out we won, it was crazy," Penn sophomore Michelle Wild said. "It's a really cool thing, especially for the seniors. There were lots of people crying at that point.? It was something we haven't had in a long time." "Everybody swam out of their minds," Holland said. "It was absolutely incredible." "It was a great day," said Schnur, a long-time assistant who won his first meet as head coach. "I've never had a more satisfying day in swimming and I've been a swimmer and coach now for a long, long time. Penn's women's swimming is back."
(11/17/99 10:00am)
New coach Michael Schnur brings a new approach to the team. The Penn women's swimming team does not want to think about its 0-42 Ivy League record over the past six seasons. Nor do the Quakers wish to ponder the fact that they have not had a winning season in the Ivies since 1990. Instead, as the '90s -- which have been brutal for the Quakers, to say the least -- draw to a close, Penn wants only to think about what lies ahead. And there is good reason to think that what does lie ahead is eventual, if not immediate, success. If nothing else, the Quakers can look upon their upcoming season with a fresh perspective for the first time in a while. In September, Kathy Lawlor-Gilbert, longtime coach of both the women's and the men's swimming teams, shocked the Penn sports community by announcing her retirement after 17 years of coaching the Quakers. Michael Schnur, an assistant under Lawlor-Gilbert for seven years, was promoted to the interim head coaching position of both the men's and women's teams, a move that many women swimmers praised. However, it appears that Schnur is in it for the long haul. "[Promoting Schnur] really helped make that transition a lot more smooth," junior co-captain Cathy Holland said. "We're used to having him as a coach figure." While Schnur and Lawlor-Gilbert, who was 115-124 during her tenure, worked together for several years, his coaching style differs from hers, which pleases the swimmers. "It's more serious than last year, which I like better," sophomore Devin McGlynn said. "We're really expected to be on time.? There's more consequences for missing a workout. The whole feeling of the team and the way it's moving is more serious." With Schnur and his new approach winning over a program that had been flailing in the water, the Quakers hope that the conditions are right for them to make modest strides toward respectability this season. Although the team went 2-9 last year in the Ivies, they showed noticeable improvement as the season wore on. By the time the Quakers had seen their last competition for 1998-99, they were already looking to the next season as the one in which they would improve their record to reflect more than just personal bests. A strong and versatile recruiting class only reinforced this notion. But they realize that it won't happen overnight. "We're getting close," Schnur said. "[But] it's a continuing process. It's not something where, from last year all of a sudden to this year, it's completely done. "We need one or two more recruiting classes to be fully where we want to be. [But] we're ready to improve a lot on last year. I think we're going to break some school records, I think we're going to improve our finish at Easterns and I think we're going to win more meets than we did last year." In order for Penn to do this, however, it must take full advantage of its team depth to make up for points lost in its weakest area: diving. The Quakers have no true divers, and while Daphne Hernandez will be diving coach for both the men and women -- a position unoccupied in recent years -- Penn will likely go into each meet with a large disadvantage. Schnur hinted that diving will be a top recruiting priority in years to come. As for swimming, the Quakers are remarkably balanced and can put a quality swimmer into Sheerr Pool for practically every event. "We have no weaknesses," Schnur said. "In years past, you could look at one or two events or one or two strokes on our team and say, 'We have no one in that.' That's not the case this year." Schnur added that the Quakers will also be strong in individual medleys. Penn will open the season, as well as its Ivy schedule, with an away meet Saturday afternoon against both Cornell, the Ivy team closest to Penn last year, and perennial power Princeton. Predictably, Penn sees beating Cornell as its first, best chance to make history of the 0-42 mark. As for the rest of the league, Brown, which has won the last two Ivy championships, joins Harvard and the Tigers as the teams to beat. Yale will also have a strong team, and Columbia, through the benefit of Christina Teuscher, a 1996 U.S. Olympian and arguably the best collegiate swimmer in the nation, will be a notch above the Quakers. Penn is hoping that this weekend can serve as a stepping stone towards both catching those strong teams and reaching greater success in 1999-2000 and beyond. "We really want to try to be competitive with Cornell," McGlynn said. "We think we can."
(11/04/99 10:00am)
With a 3-2 victory last night, the Quakers now own their first winning streak of the year. "Is that our first bit of luck this year, Brooke?" Penn field hockey coach Val Cloud asked senior defender Brooke Jenkins. Jenkins, resting on the crutches she uses to support herself after tearing her ACL, thought for a moment. "Yeah," she said. Unlike last Saturday's bittersweet 3-2 win at Yale, nothing went wrong for the Penn field hockey team during last night's 3-2 triumph over West Chester. Saturday, the joy following the Quakers' first Ivy win of the season was cut short when leading scorer and co-captain Leah Bills, who had scored all three of Penn's goals, ruptured her Achilles tendon while celebrating the victory. Last night, however, the Quakers could finally revel without worry in a job well done, as freshman midfielder Kylee Jakobowski tallied two goals and senior goalkeeper Alison Friedman made five saves. The win was Penn's fifth of the season and it gave the Quakers their first winning streak this year. The Red and Blue (5-11) will try to end the century on a three-game winning streak when they face Princeton in their season finale tomorrow night at Franklin Field. Penn, while hardly dominant, never trailed the Golden Rams in a contest that was played a day later than originally scheduled. The torrential downpour that moved Tuesday's contest at West Chester to Franklin Field last night was replaced instead by a numbing cold. The Quakers were up 1-0 in their impromptu home game when West Chester struck two minutes into the second half to tie it, as a series of exceptional criss-crossing passes off a corner opportunity resulted in Marisa Mitchell's goal. But the Quakers regained the lead one minute later as Jakobowski scored her second goal of the game off a corner, deflecting freshman midfielder Mandy Doherty's shot into the net. "It was nice to capitalize on corners, [to] get those corners in," Jakobowski said, referring to one of the areas on which Penn has worked most of the year to improve. The goal and the regaining of the lead seemed to lift Penn's spirits, as the Quakers controlled play for the next several minutes. Conversely, the Golden Rams, who fell to 7-11 on the year, appeared bothered throughout the entire game. Their passing was not crisp and they had trouble getting the ball into the offensive circle when they needed to. "We're a grass team," West Chester coach Kathy Krannebitter said. "We've been all grass for the past three weeks. Having not had the opportunity to prepare for a turf game? had a big effect on our play tonight." The match was marked early on by back-and-forth play, as both teams traded offensive attacks that resulted in few quality scoring chances. But with a little under 12 minutes left in the first half, Penn was presented with its first corner opportunity, and while the Quakers weren't able to capitalize, they were awarded another corner on the ensuing play. The Red and Blue, as they rarely have done this season, took advantage of this second chance. Off the corner, senior forward Courtney Martin deflected the ball to Jakobowski, who put it in the back of the net for her first of the night. The goal came with 11:12 to go in the half and gave Penn a 1-0 lead. Martin was credited with the assist. With 22:14 left in the second half and the Quakers holding a 2-1 lead, forward Maureen Flynn essentially put the game away, beating West Chester goalkeeper Joelle Maguire for her fifth goal of the season. West Chester added a goal with 19:33 left, as a shot off midfielder Charlene Bailey's stick trickled into the net to cut the Quakers' lead to one. "I wasn't happy with the way West Chester came back with the goal," Cloud said. "The goals we gave up weren't good goals." But the Golden Rams would only come close once more, getting a corner opportunity with two minutes to go in the game. Luckily for Penn, they did not convert on this chance. With this win behind them, the Quakers have just one game remaining on the schedule. Beating Yale and West Chester, however, gives Penn's record a bit more respectability before tomorrow's meeting with Princeton. "It's nice to have five wins," Cloud said. "Less than a week ago we only had three."
(10/27/99 9:00am)
As the Quakers prepare to face Penn State today, senior defender Brooke Jenkins will undergo ACL surgery. Throughout her Penn athletic career, Brooke Jenkins has given a lot to her teams. Now one of her teams will try to give something back to her. Penn field hockey senior defender Jenkins, who also plays lacrosse for the Quakers, will undergo surgery tomorrow to repair her left ACL, which she tore against Stanford on October 15. Her field hockey teammates want to give her what would easily be the biggest win of the season when they face fourth-ranked Penn State tonight at 7 p.m. in University Park. Jenkins, who has torn her right ACL twice, is sorely missed by her teammates both on and off the field. She plans to return in the spring for the Penn women's lacrosse team's 2000 campaign. "It's hard both as a friend and a teammate to see her go through this, but I think she's been an inspiration to the team in terms of how hard she works," Penn senior forward Leah Bills said, referring to Jenkins' desire to come back by the spring. "She just gets up and keeps going.? This one's going to be for her." While junior defender Lauren Cornew has performed admirably at the sweeper position in place of Jenkins, the Quakers, who have given up eight goals in their last two games, have not dealt well with the loss of their co-captain and her leadership on defense. This could present a problem against high-powered Penn State, which beat 11th-ranked Ohio State Sunday by the resounding score of 4-1. As Bills points out, it is up to the offense to help the defense by giving it a cushion, something it has not had often this season. "If we can generate a lead or some good offensive hustle, I think everyone will pick up their play [defensively]," Bills said. Penn's much-maligned offense seemed to have solved such problems when it scored four goals October 17 against Bucknell and three in a tough one-goal loss to Temple last Wednesday. "Once we got a couple goals, everyone was goal-crazy," Bills said of the two games. "Once we hit the 25 [yard line], everyone was just looking to score." Looking was almost all the Quakers did last Saturday, as they managed to get only one goal against a Brown team which is much stronger than the two against which Penn experienced their recent offensive renaissance. It gets no easier heading into the proverbial "lions' den" that is University Park. Penn State, which trumped Penn 6-0 last year, is 14-3, including a 7-1 shellacking of Temple on September 21. Thus, Penn knows that a return of the scoring touch which it tasted so briefly last week is vital should it hope to keep pace with the Nittany Lions. "[Tonight] we're not going to have very many opportunities, so we need every single one we get," Bills said. "It's got to be either a corner or a goal. Nothing in between." Penn hopes that a good game tonight will slingshot it into its final three games and the off-season on an up note. "Playing against a team like Penn State, it can't hurt you," Penn senior midfielder Maureen Flynn said. "You may not come out on top but you'll learn so much because you're playing a team that's so good." Not that the Quakers aren't relishing the opportunity to upset a national power. "[A win] would definitely make my senior year," Bills said.
(10/20/99 9:00am)
Finally, the goals have come. Less than 48 hours after a tough 2-1 loss to Stanford at Franklin Field Friday night, the Penn field hockey team notched a 4-1 home victory over Bucknell Sunday afternoon, realizing the offensive potential that had been fulfilled but once all season. The Quakers will try to use their new-found scoring touch to win back-to-back games for the first time all year when they travel to Temple today at 3:30 p.m. The win, not to mention the breakout on offense, could not have come at a better time for Penn. After blowing a 1-0 lead with seven minutes to go against Stanford and losing senior defender and co-captain Brooke Jenkins to a knee injury, the thorough domination of Bucknell helped soothe the Quakers' spirits and improve their record to 3-8. "It was good for us, to prove to ourselves that we can? score four goals in one game," Penn junior defender Amna Nawaz said. "That was definitely good for our confidence." Penn senior forward Leah Bills opened the scoring on a penalty stroke at 28:42 of the first half. The goal was her team-leading sixth of the season. Three minutes later, Maureen Flynn put home a loose ball off a penalty corner to make it 2-0. While this was ultimately all Penn needed to beat the Bison, the fireworks had just begun. After Bucknell forward Erin Plasteras made it 2-1 with 4:06 left in the first half, Penn senior forward Katie McCuen scored on a rebound from a penalty corner shot with under 17 minutes to give Penn a comfortable 3-1 lead. Penn forward Maria Karas then put the exclamation point on the win, scoring with 31 seconds left in the contest. The four goals for the Red and Blue matched their season high, as they beat Villanova 4-2 on September 14. "We just completely dominated and put a lot of pressure on their defense," Penn senior goalkeeper Alison Friedman said. "[The ball] didn't even come into our defensive circle the entire second half." This was not the case Friday night against Stanford, as Penn lost a heartbreaker, 2-1, after leading 1-0. With the game tied at one, Stanford midfielder Michelle Scott scored on a penalty stroke with 1:41 to go in the game, giving Stanford a 2-1 lead and, ultimately, the win. The scoring opened at 20:30 of the first half when Bills put the ball in the back of the net following a goalmouth scramble resulting from a shot off a penalty corner, giving Penn a 1-0 lead. But the Quakers' scoring problem once again reared its head, as Penn could not score on multiple opportunities. "We had a lot of corners in our favor but we had trouble capitalizing on them," Nawaz said. "They were able to finish what we couldn't finish." Despite this, Penn appeared to be headed to a 1-0 win when Stanford defender Julie Gwozdz scored on a two-on-one breakaway with 6:55 left in the game. On the play, Jenkins injured her left knee and had to leave the game. The extent of her injury is not known, and she is being evaluated by doctors this week. Jenkins has torn the ACL of her right knee twice, most recently last spring while playing for the Penn women's lacrosse team. Penn's wounds were healed somewhat with the win over Bucknell and because of this the Quakers look forward to playing Temple today. "We really want to win [today]," Friedman said. "We know we can win."
(10/15/99 9:00am)
Penn coach Val Cloud is confident the Quakers can get on a roll after beating William and Mary. While the temperature is falling in Philadelphia, the Penn field hockey team's hopes are starting to rise. After a much-needed 1-0 win over William and Mary last Sunday that ended a six-game losing streak, Penn will try to put together consecutive wins for the first time this season when it faces Stanford tonight at 7 p.m. at Franklin Field. The win, the Quakers' first since they beat Villanova on September 14, was enough to change the mood of the team in practice this week. "We've definitely been more confident and that makes us more upbeat," Penn junior defender Amna Nawaz said. "There's more focus in practice this week," sophomore forward Maria Karas added. "Since we won, people have been looking forward to the next game." Tonight begins a three-game stretch through which the Quakers believe they can achieve respectability. Penn hosts Bucknell on Sunday and travels to Temple Wednesday. "I expect to leave with those games behind us 3-0," Penn coach Val Cloud said. "I'd be very disappointed if we didn't.? They're three very winnable games." Sweeping these three games would improve Penn's record to 5-7 with five games left to play, three of which are against Ivy opponents. And while Cloud concedes that there will almost certainly be no playoffs or championships this year, she is optimistic about playing well the rest of the season. "We started out on a low note, we're going to build and hopefully this middle of the season will help us to do that and get the confidence back to play the tougher games," Cloud said. While the possibility of Penn finishing close to or above .500 after a horrid start is very much alive, the Quakers cannot commit a cardinal sin by looking past the beatable Cardinal tonight. In playing Stanford, Penn faces a young but well-coached team in a rebuilding phase after losing many of its seniors from last year's team. "They don't seem to be as impressive as they were last year," Cloud noted. But this will not matter if Penn doesn't put the ball in the net. The Quakers have scored only one goal in their last two games as they were shut out by lowly Columbia one week ago and notched a solitary tally against William and Mary, which turned out to be enough for a win. "Hopefully we'll get a few more goals than just one [against Stanford]," Cloud said. "At least one more than they have." "We're definitely capable of scoring," Penn senior forward and co-captain Leah Bills said. "We just need to execute on the opportunities that we do create." To this end, Penn has used its reinforced confidence in practice this week to work on finishing scoring chances. "Scoring's been our weakest this season, so this week we've been working on? doing drills inside the circle and taking shots," Karas said. The Quakers will do anything they can to score against Stanford. "Whether it's forcing a foul inside the circle to create a corner, which is another scoring opportunity, or just getting a shot off on goal, I think that's been our main focus this week," Bills said. "I think we're improving." Stanford will try to continue its Philadelphia winning streak after beating Temple yesterday, 2-1. "It should be a good matchup," Cloud said. "We're guaranteed a shot if we execute."
(10/06/99 9:00am)
Penn's scoring woes continued as Delaware shut out the Quakers. An October chill descended upon Franklin Field last night but it was nowhere near as cold as the Penn field hockey team's sticks have gone lately. With a 1-0 loss to Delaware, Penn dropped to 1-6 and was still left with concerns about its lack of scoring. "This game was very frustrating to me from the beginning," Penn coach Val Cloud said. "We didn't play with composure at times. It's hard to figure this team out. Sometimes they play well together. Sometimes, it's like you wonder if they know hockey." The players were also left bothered by the result. "We just can't piece together 70 minutes of hockey," Penn senior forward and co-captain Leah Bills said. "We play superb and then we let down for a little bit.? It's hard to pick up once you let down." Penn's defense played well in the first half despite a breakdown that led to the game's only goal by Delaware's Katie Wirth, but seemed to tire in the second half, as they allowed Delaware many quality scoring chances. The lone goal, which was enough to send Penn to its fifth straight defeat, came with 12:40 left in the first half as the ball trickled in past Penn goalkeeper Alison Friedman's left side following a goal-mouth scramble. "The first goal shouldn't have been a goal," Cloud said. "It was a very poor effort defensively. It was one of the sickest goals I've ever seen." "The goal took a lot of wind out of us," Bills said. Penn found the loss especially frustrating because Delaware had lost six in a row coming into the game, including a 4-0 shellacking at the hands of ninth-ranked James Madison Sunday. The Quakers' inability to get quality scoring chances, however, helped Delaware get over this losing streak. "We need to create opportunities for ourselves," Penn senior forward Courtney Martin said. "[We need to] just take lots of shots. You're not going to score a goal if you don't take a shot." This proved to be difficult against Delaware's defense, as the Blue Hens stifled Penn's attempts to get into the circle and take quality shots. Delaware goalie Kelly Ottati also played well, stopping a shot off a Penn corner with her chest pads late in the second half to keep the shutout intact and hand Penn its fourth one-goal loss. "We played well enough to win," Cloud said. "We just did some not very productive things." The Quakers can ill afford to do those things when they play at Columbia on Friday night. The Lions are winless in Ivy League play and Penn doesn't want that to change anytime soon. "We have to come out hard. We have to score early.? When we beat Villanova, that's what we did," Bills said. "We have to take them seriously." "We need to focus on ourselves and what we can do," Martin said. "We need to win."
(10/01/99 9:00am)
The Houston Astrodome may be closing this season but the concept it introduced continues on the banks of the Charles. And while this year's conversion of Harvard's Cumnock Field to AstroTurf may not give the Penn field hockey team (1-4, 0-2 Ivy League) any decided advantage tomorrow, it sure beats playing the Crimson (5-2, 2-0) on grass. "Usually we have to play them on grass," Penn senior defender Brooke Jenkins said, noting that the Quakers are much more familiar with artificial turf. "[It] makes things a little bit more equal," Penn coach Val Cloud said. "[It] gets rid of the disadvantage of playing on their old grass field." Even playing on relatively smooth AstroTurf instead of rough hewn grass, the Quakers will need any and every advantage they can get to beat Harvard, ranked No. 19 in the nation. "They have a very balanced team," Penn assistant coach Donna Mulhern said of Harvard, referring to their goalkeeping and their midfield play as two of their strengths. "It's always a tough game [against Harvard]," Penn senior forward Courtney Martin said. The Quakers, who have not beaten Harvard in their last three tries, went into practice this week intent on erasing the bitter memory of last weekend's heartbreaking double overtime loss at Cornell. "[We're] trying to focus on Harvard," Penn senior forward and co-captain Maureen Flynn said. "I think we look good." According to Martin, the Quakers have been focusing on "executing the simple things." Cloud believes that one of Penn's strengths is its ability to rebound shots. The Quakers, however, are concerned about goals, which have eluded them for most of the season. "We've worked on [scoring] all week," Martin said. "It's something we need to overcome mentally. We're focusing on finishing." "We're not at 100 percent in the circle," Flynn said. "But I think we're improving." Whether the goals come or not, the Quakers are counting on another stellar goalkeeping performance this week, although they are not sure who will provide it. According to Mulhern, Penn senior goalkeeper Alison Friedman, who sprained her ankle in practice last Saturday, has markedly improved this week. Her status is not totally certain, however, for the game. "Alison had a good practice," Cloud added. "If she has a good practice tomorrow [Friday], she'll go." However, Penn sophomore goalkeeper Gerianne Kauffman, who was nothing short of amazing in place of Friedman last week at Cornell, might still get the nod. "If Alison's not 100 percent, we won't hesitate to put Kauffman in there," Cloud said. Penn will need both goals and goalkeeping to beat a tough, physical Harvard team and avoid leaving Boston 0-3 in Ivy play. "We need this game for momentum? just to turn our season around," Flynn said. And the Quakers believe that they can get one. "Nobody's expecting us to win except ourselves," Cloud said. "We've got nothing to lose, do we?"
