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The Daily Pennsylvanian

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By Moses Nsereko · Oct. 2, 2016

Sometimes the fight means more than the win. And, in the 20th edition of the Cissie Leary Memorial Invitational, the Quakers endured extraordinary battles throughout the weekend. On Sunday, play at the Hecht tennis center concluded at Penn’s annual home tournament, commemorating the late Cissie Leary, who served as the women's tennis coach at Penn from 1977-1996.





In her trademark neon headband, junior attack Alexa Hoover scored two goals against Harvard to break Penn field hockey's all-time record for goals in her team's 3-2 loss over the weekend. 

There was a strong overcast over Ellen Vagelos Field as Penn field hockey squared off with Harvard, an apt metaphor for the stubborn opposition that the Quakers faced on the field. In what ended up as an unfortunate 3-2 loss in double-overtime for the Red and Blue (6-3, 1-1 Ivy), there were many points where the home side showed little sign of being able to surmount the 2-0 lead from its Boston rivals. The Crimson (6-4, 2-0) went up by one 25 minutes into the first half after a shot off a corner found its way past junior goalie Liz Mata.










Senior Ashley Montgomery is a big part of the Quakers' strong start and placement in the rankings. Montgomery has finished first in both of Penn's meets so far this year.

On October 2, Penn cross country will travel to Lehigh to compete in the Paul Short Invitational, where both the men and women will kick off their seasons in earnest.  The Quakers are coming off of first-place performances in two early-year tuneups, the Big 5 Invitational and the Main Line Invitational.



Some athletes, like senior football captain Nick Demes, choose not only to balance sports but also the added rigor of the engineering program.

The thought of having to perform this balancing act is enough to make any confident time-manager quake in his or her boots; however, there is one subset of student-athletes that have a particularly difficult run of things. They are the minority — or maybe you just never see them because they are tucked away on the east end of campus coding into the waning hours of the morning. They are the engineer-athletes.