While the majority of the graduating senior class was looking for jobs last spring, Dean Merrill was in search of something a little different: a golf coach. After captaining the Quakers last season, the former college standout is pursuing a pro career, choosing the picturesque conditions of the Sunshine State as ground zero for his training.

There's no doubt where the game ball went after Yale's 31-28 double-overtime victory over Holy Cross. Senior linebacker Bobby Abare, playmaker extraordinaire, did what he does best on Saturday - get the ball back to the Elis. Not only did the All-Ivy first-teamer lead his team in tackles with 10 (nine solo), but he also had two picks, both of which came at crucial times.

Senior cornerback Tyson Maugle broke his nose in three places during Saturday's win over Dartmouth and is officially considered a game-time decision for the Quakers' visit to Georgetown this weekend. A defensive captain and third-year starter, Maugle departed in the fourth quarter on Saturday after suffering the injury.

The Penn men soccer team's undefeated run came to an end to night, as the Quakers lost to Lehigh, 2-1, on a golden goal in the 109th minute. The Mountain Hawks struck first off a corner five minutes before halftime. In the second, the Quakers came out gunning, with Omid Shokofandeh burying a cross in the 50th minute to even it up.

With 10 seconds left in Penn's 23-10 win over Dartmouth on Saturday, the Big Green offense took the field one last time - merely a formality. But quarterback Alex Jenny dropped back instead of taking a knee and was promptly sent to the turf by junior linebacker Jake Lewko.

Cornerback Tyson Maugle knows his captaincy designation is ephemeral, passed annually and non-transferable in the brutal economy that awaits the Class of '09. Thankfully, the third-year starter has a plan to trade in the "C" for another, more practical title: M.

In 1975, the men's soccer team went undefeated in its nonconference schedule. Tonight - a third of a century later - the Quakers can repeat that accomplishment. The Quakers (7-0-3, 1-0 Ivy) visit Lehigh tonight with the opportunity to put a punctuation mark on their stellar non-Ivy performance.

Sophomore midfielder Sarah Friedman came into Saturday's match with Cornell knowing she could shatter Penn's single-season assist record. "Kristin [Kaiser] and Kaitlin [Campbell] and I were researching Cornell, and one of the Web sites had written something about it," she said.

In the two games leading up to Saturday's showdown at Dartmouth, the Penn women's field hockey team had finally overcome the slow starts that had plagued its season. But within two minutes, Dartmouth scored and stopped Penn's progress. The Big Green added another before halftime en route to a 3-2 win.

Sophomore Luke Grau crossed the finish line of his 8K race with a time of 24:51- and only one sneaker. Grau proved himself in more ways than one at the Paul Short Cross Country Invitational in Bethlehem, Pa., on Friday,where Penn finished 12th. Coming in 20 seconds -but 25 places overall - behind teammate and fellow sophomore Chris Baird, Grau opted to abandon his unstable sneaker after another runner had stepped on his heel about one mile into the race.

The scoreboard showed Cornell up, 2-1, and the clock was ticking down. Penn forward Omid Shokoufandeh "thought it would be easy" beating the Big Red; instead, he was watching the unthinkable unfold. A loss to Ivy bottom-feeder Cornell would not mean not only an embarrassing way to snap the men's soccer team's eight-match undefeated streak but also an 0-1 conference hole.

On Saturday, sophomore running back Michael DiMaggio carried the Quakers on his bulky legs. Quarterback Robert Irvin had a very respectable first half against Dartmouth. But without any semblance of a running game, the Quakers could not get the offense going, forcing Kyle Olson to punt the ball away six times before halftime.

The women's cross country team is used to being together, on and off the course. Senior Charlotte Lawson, for one, has lived with Kinjal Parikh and Leah Brogan since their freshman year. And at the Women's Brown Race on Friday, a large field of competitors allowed the three Quakers to run side by side.

On Saturday, the Penn women's volleyball team opened its Ivy season at home with a familiar result: a loss to Princeton, its sixth-straight loss to the Tigers. Senior co-captains Steph Gwin and Kathryn Turner have had enough of it. "There was definitely anger and frustration on the part of Steph and myself, and I know that the two of us decided we're not going to stand for this kind of level anymore," Turner said.

It should have been a routine play, a no-brainer. Down just a touchdown with more than 14 minutes left to play, Dartmouth faced 4th-and-10 on its own 38. What ensued should never have decided the game. But punter Brian Scullin never put the ball to his foot, and instead tossed a short pass to special teamer Matthew Dornak.

Three-plus seasons of the unexpected (and the outright ridiculous) has made me hesitant to draw broad conclusions whenever Penn beats an unremarkable team like Dartmouth, especially in a game lowlighted by a 7-7 half. So I'll refrain from doing that. What, then, does one say about Saturday? The consensus in the pressbox and my inbox pegged the big developments as (a) Penn's inability to sustain drives, and (b) kicker Andrew Samson's three-for-three afternoon on field goals - notable only as a contrast to seasons past.

After his team wrapped up first-round play on Saturday, women's golf coach Mark Anderson knew the day was far from over. The Quakers had carded a 46-over 336 on day one of the Eastern College Athletic Conference Championships, and he wasn't ready to let them head back to their Williamsburg, Va.