A lot can change in the Ivy League from year to year, and with last year's league leaders coming to town, it looks like Penn softball is on the better side of the new Ancient Eight order. The Quakers begin conference play with contests against Harvard and Dartmouth this weekend.

One goal. That was the margin of defeat for Penn men’s lacrosse in both of their games against Yale in 2016, including an 11-10 overtime defeat in their first meeting of the season in New Haven. On Saturday, the Quakers (4-3, 1-1 Ivy) will have an opportunity to avenge those losses.

It's a major weekend for Penn Athletics, with a high-stakes women's tennis matchup against three-time defending champion Princeton leading the way in a jam-packed slate.

Sometimes you need a change of scenery. For Penn women’s lacrosse, the team will be trading the City of Brotherly Love for the Windy City to take on a strong Northwestern side this weekend.

Penn track and field is going places this weekend. You’ll be able to find Quakers across the country: distance runners will be at the Stanford Invitational out west, sprinters, jumpers and throwers will be at the Florida Relays down south, and developing athletes will be back east here, at the Danny Curran Invitational at Chester, Pennsylvania.

When one envisions a two-sport athlete, images of superhuman athleticism coupled with instant collegiate stardom may come to mind. But some two-sport competitors start like most other college athletes — being recruited for one sport.

We go to Penn, where people don't remember, and probably never knew, the name of the player who screwed up in the game a few days ago. They probably don't know there was one big mistake that had a huge impact on the game at all. Most of them don't know the game was lost, or even played.

The NCAA mandates that Division I athletes can only practice for 20 hours per week. Being a student-athlete at Penn, however, is so much more than just another large weekly time commitment: it’s an identity.

Most athletes come into Penn with a plan: to play their respective sport for four years, and to ultimately live that dream of being an Ivy League athlete that they agreed to the day they committed. However, not all goes as planned.

“Preparing Boys for Life.” That is the motto of The Haverford School, an elite preparatory day school that has funneled top-end lacrosse players to Penn and across the country. 

They saved their best for last. After quite a lot of softball this weekend — back-to-back home doubleheaders to be exact — Penn softball finished in style.

On Sunday, Penn fencing closed out its season at the 2017 NCAA Fencing Championships at the Indiana Farmers’ Coliseum. The Quakers came home with an eighth-place finish, scoring 107 points in the co-ed team championship tournament.

The Quakers beat Lafayette in four straight games this weekend at home. Penn (8-9) swept the Leopards (2-22) in back to back doubleheaders at MeikleJohn Stadium, outscoring them 22-7 in the process.

Well that’s one way to start a season. Penn track and field kicked off the outdoor portion of the 2017 campaign with a bang, as both the men’s and women’s squads took first on their home turf at the Penn Challenge.

It was a tremendously busy weekend for Penn Athletics, and the successes on the field weren’t limited to the record-setting meet from track and field or the huge Ivy League wins to keep men’s lacrosse and women’s lacrosse in their respective title races.

With a performance that saw him tie a career-high in points in Penn's 10-9 victory over Cornell, this week's Penn Athletics Weekend MVP goes to men's lacrosse's sophomore Simon Mathias. The Quakers (4-3, 1-1 Ivy) needed a win this weekend after dropping their Ivy opener to Princeton last weekend, and this one was certainly well fought.

The first win is always the hardest. For Penn women’s lacrosse, securing its first victory in the Ancient Eight on Saturday over Brown means it is ready for the title chase.