Head coach Dave Micahnik of the men's fencing team was fixing a sabre at practice this week. As he used a wrench to curve the blade, he turned and said, "It gives balance." Balance is just the word to describe this year's team. The Quakers have a mix of good young talent and with a host of experienced upperclassmen.

This weekend the Penn men and women's swimming teams will see a break from their normal Ivy League or northeast corridor rivals when they compete in the Kenyon Invitational in Gambier, Ohio, today through Saturday.

These Quakers are no strangers to overcoming adversity. After losing captain Katelyn Sherry to a serious foot injury, the 2005-2006 Penn fencers bounced back to finish with a 10-5 record and a ninth-place finish in the NCAA Championships. This season, the Quakers again find themselves with their backs against the wall.

What do the Three Musketeers and a mid-life semi-crisis have to do with each other? If you're asking Penn fencers Ron Berkowsky and Abby Emerson they provide the impetus to take up fencing. "When I was eight years old, I saw the movie The Three Musketeers and just fell in love with it," said Berkowsky, a junior foilist.

As Penn floundered, Delaware fortified its position in the most recent women's basketball rankings last night, as the Blue Hens left the Palestra with a decisive 73-49 victory.

Tuesday night, Dartmouth was beaten senseless by Kansas, 83-32. And that humiliation was just one of 26 non-conference losses from Ivy League men's basketball teams so far this season. This complete lack of competitiveness against non-Ivy opponents is not only embarrassing, but presents a distinct challenge for the eventual champion when it comes to tournament seeding.

There was more than enough blame to go around last night. Turnovers, fouls and missed shots plagued the Quakers all night long in another blowout loss to Delaware. Yet when it came to success, the spotlight shone brightly on just one person. Of all the Quakers, only tri-captain Monica Naltner elevated her game to the level necessary to beat a team of Delaware's caliber.

These Quakers are no strangers to overcoming adversity. After losing captain Katelyn Sherry to a serious foot injury, the 2005-2006 Penn fencers bounced back to finish with a 10-5 record and a ninth-place finish in the NCAA Championships. This season, the Quakers again find themselves with their backs against the wall.

Brennan Votel's play in his first few games this year raised a question for coach Glen Miller: What if Votel was not the big man of the future for Penn?

It's not quite midterm season in Ivy League basketball, but it is time for a high school classic - the mid-semester progress report. We'll start from the bottom up and see who might be giving Penn a run for its money come conference play. (All stats are before last night's games).

By David bernstein Staff Writer davidkb@sas.upenn.edu Monmouth's game plan was clear: Milk the shot clock, move the ball around and get shooters open. But Penn showed the Hawks that the Princeton offense doesn't work when the game becomes a track meet.

The Quakers used an 8-0 run - including back-to-back layups by Zoller - to open a double-digit lead with 8:52 to play.

When he first took the court with his new team, Glen Miller had so many options, he didn't know who to play. Maybe that explains why he put in several freshmen for significant minutes in Penn's season-opening loss against Texas-El Paso. In last night's game against Monmouth, Miller got closer to the right track, restricting his liberal bench-playing tendencies.

Last year's game against Delaware is one that the Penn women's basketball team would rather forget. In its worst loss of the season, Penn was stifled by the Blue Hen defense, putting up only 34 points and losing by a 44 point margin. But even though it's a new year, the Quakers (2-1, 0-0 Ivy) can still expect many features of the Blue Hens to remain the same.

If a team is trying to gauge its role in the national picture, then facing the No. 12 squad in the nation can help in finding an answer. When the team also takes on the No. 1 in the nation on the same day, the question changes from 'where do we fit in?' to 'how can we fit in?' Saturday at the Journeyman/Brute Northeast Collegiate Duals, the Penn wrestling team fought to a 2-2 record.

When Monmouth steps onto the Palestra floor tonight, there will be a few things Penn isn't used to seeing.

Everything about John Bunch is larger than life. At 7-foot-2, 320 pounds, the Monmouth center is of superhuman size and has shown a knack for superhuman feats. While playing his first two collegiate years at Lincoln, in Chester County, Bunch set an NCAA all-division record with 18 blocks in a December 2004 game against Valley Forge Christian.