When Penn State scored the winning goal in its 3-2 overtime win over Penn last night, it was Kevin Sweetland - not starting goalkeeper Drew Healy - who watched the fatal header fly by. Four minutes earlier, Healy had been sent off in a strange incident that gave new meaning to the phrase "sacrificing yourself for the team.

The Athletic Department has announced that the Line - when students sleep over at the Palestra to get their hands on the choice seats for the upcoming season - will take place on Oct. 5, the same night as SPEC's Ben Kweller concert.

Early in the first half, Penn midfielder Alex Grendi displayed remarkable footwork, dribbled past two defenders, put a shot on goal that got past Penn State goalie Conrad Taylor -- and watched it fly over the net. It was a sign of things to come for the Quakers, who played another solid game but gave up a goal with 37 seconds left to fall to Penn State 3-2 in double overtime.

Joe Sandberg is back in the lineup -and will start Saturday at Dartmouth -- but that doesn't mean he'll be carrying the ball at the clip he was before his injury. Coach Al Bagnoli said yesterday that he will be reluctant to give the running back more than 25 carries on Saturday.

"Dutch Total Football?" Men's soccer coach Rudy Fuller laughed when his team was compared to the 1970s Netherlands teams with their flowing soccer styles, where players were versatile enough to play any position on the field. But it's no joke - for the Quakers, no positions are set in stone.

Senior Dan Coleman, who usually starts at wide receiver alongside classmate Braden Lepisto, was conspicuously absent from Penn's lineup after being benched for disciplinary reasons.

Sometimes, hard work just isn't enough. That can ring especially true when it comes to basketball recruiting. Especially the case of Neil Duvall, a 6-foot-8 small forward from Southlake, Texas. After narrowing his list down to Penn and Furman, Duvall ultimately chose the latter, a South Carolina school with fewer than 2,700 undergraduates.

After weeks of blocks, kills and digs, only one obstacle stands between Penn volleyball and its Ivy League competition. In a final tune-up before the Ivy opener at Princeton on Saturday, the Quakers (5-5) begin their non-tournament schedule today at Villanova (9-5), hoping to avenge consecutive 3-0 losses to their crosstown foe from the Big East.

I'm not sure exactly what Brian Walker was thinking as he walked off the field on Saturday, or when he got up the next morning, or every morning since then. But if I were in his place, I know what I would be thinking about. Me. Or, more specifically, why me? Why me - on the bench and not on the field - and why me - rotated out time and time again to invest more PT in a younger and stronger version of myself? It's times like those that make you question all the two-a-days and push-ups.

VILLANOVA, Pa. - How did four Villanova defenders record their first career interceptions on Saturday? Easy - they were in the zone.

If you thought Penn struggled in its running game on Saturday against Villanova, take a look at the Yale-Cornell contest. While the Quakers tallied 45 yards -- with 29 coming from quarterback Bryan Walker - the Big Red mustered just 39 on the ground as they fell 51-12 to the Bulldogs.

Texas volleyball is big - only California can boast of having more talent in the sport. And Lone Star State volleyball players, like most Texans, have a tendency to stick close to home. So high-school teammates Anna Shlimak and Julia Swanson weren't exactly following the crowd when they chose, three years apart, to play for the Quakers.

Penn men's soccer coach Rudy Fuller must feel like he's playing "Whack-a-Mole." He knocks one problem down, and another pops up. Last year, his team had trouble closing out games. This year, it can't open them. In 2006, the Quakers were prone to fading in the second half.

By the end of the night, the Penn quarterback combination of Robert Irvin and Bryan Walker had thrown a total of seven interceptions to hand Villanova a 34-14 win, their seventh in a row in this series.

You don't need to look at the scoreboard to see which team won a volleyball match. All you need to see is the attack percentage. Win that battle and the match is yours. Penn demonstrated that over the weekend, winning the percentage battle and thus taking the match two out of three times.

VILLANOVA, Pa., Sept. 22 - With star running back Joe Sandberg in street clothes on Saturday night, Penn got a little glimpse of what 2007 could have looked like. Sandberg, a fifth-year senior who rushed for roughly 100 yards against Villanova each of the last two years, wasn't a lock to return to the Quakers this year after transferring from Penn to Rutgers and back again three years ago.

Penn's best doubles team scores upset The singles bracket of the Cissie Leary Invitational may have been a dud. But as far as Penn was concerned, the doubles competition couldn't have gone any better. Fresh off of taking the William and Mary Invitational, Ekaterina Kosminskaya and Julia Koulbitskaya gave Penn its first ever doubles win at the Leary Invitational.