By DAVID DeLUCA Ali Enthusiast hottie10@dailypennsylvanian.com Over the last few years, the Penn women's lacrosse team has steadily improved from being the joke of the Ivy League to its creme de la creme. From a 10-6 season in 2006, to a Final Four in 2007, to last year's loss in the national championship, and finally, to this year's 10-0 start, the Quakers have clearly become Penn's best team.

By TITS McGEE Lady Staff Writer tits@dailypennsylvanian.com Another sophomore hoopster has flown Glen Miller's coop. And this one's going to hurt even more than it did to watch Remy Cofield and Harrison Gaines hang up their sneaks. Tyler Bernardini, Penn's leading scorer the past season and the 2008 Ivy League Rookie of the Year, announced yesterday that he will be the latest member of the Class of 2011 to wave goodbye to Miller and company.

Rain or shine, Brett Rendina and the men's golf team are proving that they're among the best in the Northeast. On a rain-soaked afternoon, the senior - who tied for first at 70, one under par - and his teammates finished second among the 10 teams at the Rehoboth Beach Spring Invitational yesterday.

The men's lacrosse team played what may have been its best lacrosse of the season, but came up just short of upsetting No. 2 Princeton, falling 10-9 in overtime. Princeton senior attack Tommy Davis scored the game-winner - his fourth goal of the game - 1:30 into the extra period to give the Tigers the win.

Believe it or not, there's a basketball oasis in West Philadelphia, where Penn students and inner-city children come together each Friday to cap off the week. Enter at 58th and Walnut. Tread lightly down the creaky hallways lined with beat-up lockers, past the classrooms filled with wobbly desks and outdated books and swing open the double doors.

Facing the second-best team in the nation tonight, Penn men's lacrosse has nothing to lose. No. 2 Princeton (8-1, 1-0 Ivy) will travel south on Interstate-95 today to face the Quakers (2-6, 1-3) in a 7 p.m. matchup under the lights at Franklin Field. Though both squads are coming off wins, the circumstances are far from similar.

As long as it faces a non-conference opponent, the Penn baseball team can hold its own. But so far this season, the Quakers (10-16, 0-8 Ivy) have been the pinatas of the Ivy League: Everyone gets a free hit. They've stumbled to a nasty nine-game losing streak since conference play began and are hoping to regain their confidence today against Lafayette (13-15) in Easton, Pa.

For the men's tennis team, this weekend brought little but disappointment. After a loss to Princeton last weekend in their Ivy season opener, the Quakers lost two more league matches on the road this weekend. Friday they fell to Brown, 6-1, and Saturday they dropped a devastating 4-3 match to Yale.

he sunshine near the end of Penn's Friday victory was perfectly timed. Unfortunately for any believers in fate, the Quakers' win was just a result of good defense. The Red and Blue played their best lacrosse in the second half, downing Dartmouth, 9-6, for their first Ivy win of the season and their first win of any kind since Feb.

The individual matchup between Quakers junior Emma Spiro and Harvard sophomore Jess Halpern in Saturday's game exemplified the talent gap between the No. 3 Penn women's lacrosse team and the unranked Crimson. Coming into the contest, Halpern was Harvard's game-changer, with a team-leading 3.

In its second Ivy League weekend of the season against Brown and Yale, the Penn softball team came away with a pair of firsts - its first three-game win streak of the season and the first collegiate home run for freshman Jamie Boccanfuso. "It was really exciting," Boccanfuso said of her three-run drive to center field that gave the Quakers the lead in game one against Brown in Providence, R.

Lauren Sadaka's match against Yale's Vicky Brook came down to a few points and some debatable calls. However, it didn't end in Sadaka's favor. She lost on a grueling tiebreaker, 4-6, 7-5, 10-6 - her only loss of the weekend in either singles or doubles. "[Lauren's] one of the greatest competitors we've ever had at Penn, and she's the inspiration for everyone else on our team," interim coach Sara Schiffman said.

The hole just keeps getting deeper for the baseball team. After dropping doubleheaders on the road to Brown and Yale this weekend, Penn has lost nine games in a row and remains winless in the Ivy League. Coach John Cole and the team did not make themselves available for comment.

Penn basketball fans might see some familiar faces playing in tomorrow's Final Four. Of course, the Quakers aren't competing in Detroit - even if it is the 30th anniversary of Penn's lone national semifinal appearance. Instead, Penn's first opponent of the season, No.

After getting his first Ivy League experience as a Penn tennis player last weekend - in a hard-fought, 4-3 loss at Princeton - Hicham Laalej is starting to get a feel for what it takes to battle conference competition. "In the Ivy League it's all about who wants it more," the Morocco native said.

The clock on court two of Levy Tennis Pavilion read 6:30. Officially, practice begins at four o'clock and ends at six o'clock, but sophomore Alexa Ely and freshman Emily Wolf had just finished hitting. Ely's day of class and tennis began with an early-morning individual session with interim coach Sara Schiffman while most Penn students were still sleeping.

Today's men's lacrosse match may not determine the Ivy League champion, but at the moment it looms pretty large for the Quakers. The team will attempt to halt its six-game losing streak against Dartmouth at 4 p.m. this afternoon at Franklin Field. Both teams have been disappointing thus far this season - the Red and Blue (1-6, 0-3 Ivy) and Big Green (2-6, 0-1) are the only two Ivy squads without a conference win.