There is a first time for everything, including becoming a giant-killer. Annie Kinsey helped deliver it to Penn in a big way. Kinsey hit two big home runs in the second game of the Quakers' doubleheader against division-leading Cornell Saturday, as Penn took the second game 6-5.

After his team began the year 1-7, Jason Pinsky was tired of hearing about how Penn couldn't win. "Everyone has been doubting us this whole year saying, 'you guys are losing every match,'" he said. "But we played eight top-20 teams in the country. As of now, it's really paying off.

After being picked to finish dead last in the Ivy League in Baseball America's preseason poll, the Quakers felt they had a lot to show to an audience that was convinced Penn wouldn't improve from last season. But if any doubts remained about the team's talent, they should be silenced after this weekend.

Penn saw seven years of frustration erased this weekend. The women's rowing team breezed past their competition, winning all five races on Saturday and both trophies in the Class of '89 Plate. The team traveled to New Brunswick, N.J. to compete against Rutgers and Cornell.

Marissa Rosen and Lizzie Lowe found the confines of the NCAA East Regional less accomodating than cozy Hutchinson Gymnasium. Two of Penn's best gymnasts, Rosen and Lowe, competed against the nation's best Saturday at the NCAA Northeast Regionals at the University of Michigan.

Two loss columns read zero at the end of the weekend. The Penn women's tennis team extend its Ivy win streak to 5-0, while the Quakers' Lauren Sadaka kept her own undefeated run in the spring alive. Harvard and Dartmouth were no match for the Quakers, both falling by 7-0 margins.

Penn women's track coach Gwen Harris didn't even know that she had seven first-place finishes. "Really?" she said. "Wow. I knew we did well but . wow, great." It might have been just too many to count as the Penn women scored 81 points at Princeton on Saturday, coming in first and beating track powerhouses Princeton and Yale.

For the Penn women's lacrosse team, it has been a season of reversing trends and tearing apart opponents that seemed unbeatable in the past.

Both the Penn men's and women's track teams will be in action this weekend, but the teams will only share one thing in common. And if it's not the venue, the objective or the opponents then what is it? The weather. Both teams are hoping that good old Mother Nature can give them a good weekend in order perform at their highest levels.

There are only four teams in the Gehrig Division of the Ivy League. Yet Penn has not finished with even a share of first since Mark DeRosa's senior season ten years ago. Sole possession has eluded them for even longer. The Quakers (13-14, 7-5 Ivy) can take a huge step towards erasing that futility this weekend when they take on first-place Cornell (12-14, 5-3).

At 2-3 with one Ivy League game to play, the men's lacrosse team is out of title contention. And at 5-5, the possibility of an NCAA Tournament bid is getting dimmer and dimmer. "We talked about it [yesterday] after practice, we just want to go out with some pride," sophomore attacker Craig Andrzejewski said.

No one on the women's tennis team knows what it feels like to beat Harvard. But the Quakers are hoping to change that by the time they fly back from New England on Saturday night. Penn's critical weekend starts on Friday at Harvard (3-12, 1-1) before they travel to Hanover to take on Dartmouth (8-7, 0-2) Saturday.

Annie Kinsey hasn't always been the leadoff woman for the Penn softball team. But she'll find herself in the No. 1 position when Cornell (26-7, 7-1 Ivy) visits Warren Field for two doubleheaders this weekend. After moving up from the No. 3 slot last year, Kinsey has experienced success in her new role.

For the second straight weekend, the Penn men's tennis team will be doing more than just facing Ivy League foes - it will be trying to erase the past. With their victory over Brown last Saturday, the Quakers avenged the loss that kept them out of last year's NCAA Tournament.

La Salle entered yesterday's game with four home runs in 26 games and a slugging percentage that resembled a batting average. The Explorers' modus operandi is no secret - grab a few runs here and there, and lock down with pitching and defense. Thanks in part to Penn's sloppy fielding, the plan worked to perfection.

With 10 games left in the season, the baseball team has already won more games than in either of the two previous seasons. Penn (13-14, 7-5 Ivy) owes a lot of that success to a deep and talented freshman class. There are 11 freshmen on the roster and they are pivotal to the team.

In what should have been a tune-up for this weekend's series, Penn couldn't get anything going, falling 6-3 to the Explorers.