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.

Penn women's volleyball junior Elizabeth Semmens has never tasted victory against Princeton. In fact, last season, she had to swallow two bitter losses to the Tigers that were ultimately the difference between first and second place in the Ivy League. "They are big rivals," Semmens said.

Penn men's soccer coach Rudy Fuller knows his team is going to see Cornell's best game when the Quakers (6-0-3) take on the Big Red tomorrow at Charles F. Berman Field in Ithaca, N.Y. "Here's an opportunity to turn their season around and there's no better way to do it than against Penn," Fuller said.

It wasn't always edge-of-your-seat exciting, but Penn got the job done at Franklin Field this afternoon, downing Dartmouth, 23-10, for its first win of the season. After a first half that saw just 189 yards of aggregate offense, 12 punts and a 7-7 stalemate, the Quakers got the ball rolling in the second half behind sophomore running back Michael DiMaggio.

The year was 1896. Gas cost four cents a gallon, Grover Cleveland ruled the Oval Office, "separate but equal" was all the rage and Dartmouth's football team visited Penn's newly erected home stadium for the first time - falling 16-0 to the two-time defending national-champion Quakers.

It's been 12 years since the Penn women's soccer team last lost to Cornell. And it's been 30 days since the Big Red (1-6-1) last walked away with a victory of any kind. Yet the Quakers (5-3-1) are still expecting a physical battle in Ithaca, N.Y., on Saturday - although, coach Darren Ambrose was quick to point out, not quite a war.

For most of this season, Penn field hockey coach Val Cloud spoke about the learning curve associated with her young team. Seven losses and an upset win over Harvard later, she's singing a different tune. "They're not young anymore," she said. "It's halfway through our season.

Sophomore midfielder Sarah Friedman - who hails from nearby Villanova, Pa. - knows all about Big 5 rivalries. After helping the Quakers grind out a 4-2 victory over Saint Joseph's last night with one goal and two assists, she said there was "definitely" a pride factor in defeating a local school.

The rain poured, the puddles formed and the mud splashed all over the place. In the end, the men's soccer team left Rhodes field with dirty jerseys but a clean record. The Quakers triumphed over Philadelphia Soccer Seven rival Villanova, 3-2, in a definitively messy affair.