Everyone knew Cornell was the favorite to win the Ivy League title this year. But who knew they could be this good? At least that's the question after this past weekend, when Cornell (14-6, 4-0 Ivy) followed up its sweep of Columbia by smoking Brown and then Yale at home by a combined margin of 60 points.

Hanover, N.H., - Wow, what an exciting weekend. In my five-plus semesters here at Penn, I have gone to all but two of the men's basketball Ivy League road games as part of the Penn Band. And in no single weekend have two games been as close and intense as the two I witnessed this weekend in New England.

The seniors on the Penn women's tennis team went to Norfolk, Va., Saturday looking for a sweep. The Red and Blue had beaten Old Dominion three years in a row. Saturday, though, the tables turned. In their first match of the year, the Quakers fell to the Monarchs, 7-0.

Women's basketball coach Pat Knapp's scouting report warned that Harvard sophomore Christine Matera was a deadly shooter, but going into Friday's game against Penn she had shot only 15-for-63 from behind the arc, a 23.8 percent clip. Matera found her shooting stroke against the Quakers, as she shot 5-for-5 on three-pointers, several of them from well behind the line.

Penn senior 141-pound wrestler Rick Rappo takes a very zen approach to dealing with crunch-time pressure. He seemed totally focused and undaunted in tackling his enormous task in an 18-16 home upset by the Quakers (8-5, 3-0 EIWA) over No. 21 Hofstra (7-4, 4-1 CAA) on Saturday.

By BRIAN KOTLOFF Contributing Writer bkotloff@dailypennsylvanian.com The women's swimming team got off to a mediocre start in its meet Friday at West Chester, but junior Amy Reams made sure they finished strong. With Penn holding onto a slim lead at the halfway point, Reams began the second half with an impressive win in the 100-yard freestyle.

The Penn gymnastics team hosted Brown and Towson at Hutchinson Gym Saturday at 1 p.m. The Quakers finished second with a score of 189.725, falling to Towson, which finished at 192.850. Penn edged out Brown's score of 187.300. Senior Jordan Brewer was the star for the Red and Blue.

Eight measly seconds. That's what prevented the men's basketball team from completing a tremendous start to their Ivy League season. After opening conference play with their biggest win of the season, a 66-60 road victory over Harvard Friday night, the Quakers held an eight-point lead and owned all the momentum with 5:24 remaining against Dartmouth Saturday.

Lauren Sadaka can't wait for the women's tennis season to begin. Individually, the team captain is undefeated in Ivy League play and would love to cap off her senior season with an Ivy League title. "There's a good feeling about the team this year," Sadaka said.

For the Penn women's basketball team, the start of the home Ivy League season is a sigh of relief - and an opportunity to erase the memories of last week's disappointing loss to Seton Hall. "This week was really about regrouping as a team, getting our minds right and preparing for what's ahead," guard Erin Power said.

An eight-game losing streak and a 2-12 non-conference record earlier this year didn't predicate a successful season for Big Green basketball. Toppling a huge Ivy contender on the road just two games into league play, however, is no fluke. "They certainly have some good pieces to the puzzle," Penn coach Glen Miller mused about the Dartmouth squad's victory over Harvard.

Graham Natatorium in West Chester, Pa., is unlike most swimming complexes. It houses just one six-lane pool, which limits the size of the teams competing and directly affects their lineup flexibility. Tonight, the Penn men's and women's swimming teams must overcome those challenges when they make the short trip west to face the Golden Rams at 6 p.

On the first Friday after spring classes began, the Quakers sat in a Palestra room and watched film of NJIT, which they would travel to face the next morning. When the session broke up, sophomore guard Remy Cofield pulled coach Glen Miller aside. Cofield told Miller that he felt stressed and anxious and that playing basketball was only worsening things.

Take a quick look at Hofstra's 5-foot-8, 174-pound monster Alton Lucas, and it's not very hard to see why he's the pride of the Pride wrestling squad. His chest resembles that of a mythical hero, his arms massive pillars of granite. OK, that may be a bit of a hyperbole, but suffice it to say, the guy is ripped.

Penn coach Glen Miller doesn't know exactly how Harvard's Tommy Amaker handled his squad after it upset then-No. 17 Boston College earlier this month, but he did have some ideas. "I only speak for ourselves, but the first thing I would do with my team, if we had a win like that over somebody, is I would have a difficult practice the next day," Miller said.

As a freshman on the Penn women's tennis team, Lauren Sadaka looked to senior captain Sara Schiffman as the leader of the squad. Now, a senior and captain herself, Sadaka once again finds herself looking up to Schiffman - this time, as her head coach. Schiffman, who graduated from Penn in 2006 after serving as a captain for two years, was named the interim head coach upon the resignation of former head coach Mike Dowd at the end of fall semseter.

Super Bowl Sunday can't come quickly enough for the Penn men's squash team. The Quakers fell, 9-0, to No. 2 Princeton in a match last night in New Jersey. The Red and Blue (6-4, 1-3 Ivy) were on their second road trip in four days, coming off another 9-0 defeat, this one at the hands of No.