Joe DiMaggio once said of opening day: "You look forward to it like a birthday party when you're a kid. You think something wonderful is going to happen." The Quakers begin their season tomorrow with the first of eight games in Boca Raton, Fla., and they hope that some wonders are in their future.

Playing 10 games in only a six-day span, the Penn softball team will be hitting its midseason stride by the time the rest of school returns from spring break. During their stint in Orlando, Fla. for the Rebel Spring Games, the Quakers will see five doubleheaders through Friday.

Approaching the EIWA Championships this weekend, maybe all the wrestling team needs is a few words of inspiration from its former leader. Roger Reina, who led the Quakers for 19 years before retiring in 2005, made an appearance at practice this week to speak to the team about how to approach the tournament, held at East Stroudsburg.

For the second year in a row, Penn will be facing a Big 12 power from the Lonestar State. The game will take place in Lexington, Ky. on Thursday afternoon. If Penn wins, it will face either No. 6 Louisville or No. 11 Stanford. Tottering between a 13 and a 14 seed, Penn emerged on the lower end and must now contend with an Aggies team that went 25-6 during the regular season but lost two of its final three games, all in conference play.

Too bad Penn's first win in a month had to be tainted by bad tennis etiquette. Following a 7-0 shutout of Drexel (1-3), sophomore Jonathan Boym, neglected to shake opponent Omar Laalej's hand after Boym won a heated 7-6, 6-4 battle until his coach Mark Riley forced him to return to the court.

On national television, Brown junior guard Damon Huffman contributed little in his 12 minutes against Michigan State. He made one field goal and tallied three steals. Huffman then missed the next seven games due to a knee injury. The Bears (10-17, 5-7 Ivy) went 3-4 during that period without Huffman.

Men's golf coach Rob Powelson isn't shy about how his team stacks up to the competition. "I don't think there is another Ivy League program that works as hard as we do in the offseason," Powelson said. The Quakers are coming off an impressive fall season in which they came in second in the Big 5 Classic and came in second place in two other tournaments.

Nobody seemed to know if he even belonged at this level, but four years later, Mark Zoller is a favorite for Ivy League Player of the Year.

Penn goalie Greg Klossner had a save percentage of 40, but it was 100 percent when it mattered. With under three minutes to go, Lehigh's Michael Zurfluh came streaking all alone into the crease with a chance to tie the game.

Every time the Penn women's lacrosse team moved the ball down field in the first half, it seemed the result was a goal. In the first period, the Quakers used a 9-6 advantage in draw controls and picked up seven ground balls to keep Temple back on defense during Penn's 15-5 victory over the Owls yesterday.

As Christina Khosravi is learning, college softball is different with a target on your back. Khosravi, a junior shortstop, had a season to remember last year, earning Ivy League Player of the Year honors with a .407 batting average, .607 slugging percentage and five home runs.

Add one more destination to the women's swim team calendar: Aspen, Colo. Even though Penn's season is over, some of the swimmers aren't finished competing. Teammates Tara Gillies, Cammie Villarreal, Laura D'Erasmo, Amy Reams and Nicole Malgeri won a giant Sudok. make that "Snowdoku" puzzle challenge in New York City's Bryant Park on Tuesday and earned a trip to Aspen for their efforts.

Confidence breeds success, and that is exactly the ingredient that Leslie King has brought to the Penn softball team. For a team that has not won a league title since 1981 or produced a winning record in 20 years, King, heading into her fourth year with the Quakers, has cultivated a mindset necessary for a championship team.

Few teams were better tailored for a novel than the 2005-06 Penn wrestling squad. Last year's contingent featured a new coach, Zeke Jones, and came within striking distance of an EIWA title. Oh yeah, it had a 2006 NCAA Champion, too. So G. Wayne Renneisen inadvertently stumbled on a gold mine when he decided to follow the team all year for his book.

Coach Cole's first season with Penn didn't yield great results. The team was 12-27 overall and 7-13 in the Ivies, though the record was less reflective of Cole than of the enormous transition the team was undergoing.

Senior Kenny Yoo had played varsity baseball for the first three years of his college career. But this year, he decided to play for the club team instead. And Yoo is not alone in his decision - former varsity teammate and pitcher Wes Donehower has also elected to play club baseball this season.

Speed is one of the key factors that women's lacrosse coach Karin Brower hopes will help the Quakers outplay Temple today. And Ali DeLuca, a new face on the field, has already added significantly to that. "Ali had a fantastic first game," Brower said of the weekend's 12-4 win over Drexel.