The challenge for the Quakers is two-fold this weekend. Not only are they coming up against a pair of top-tier teams in Lehigh and North Carolina — their opponents are already into their seasons.

As far as bitter losses go, this one was a zero on the PH scale. Penn field hockey came into the final game of its 2015 season looking to do something it hadn’t accomplished in over a decade: win a share of an Ivy League title. However, one crushing overtime later, the Red and Blue were forced to settle with a frustrating end to the season.

They say the best offense is a good defense. Sometimes, you just need a good offense. For Penn women’s soccer, that is the mantra for this new season.

Five years, two surgeries, four coaches, two schools – women’s soccer’s Paige Lombard has seen it all.

It was a trial by fire for Penn women’s soccer this weekend, as they fell victim to a powerful Maryland side led by a familiar face under the sweltering heat at Rhodes Field.

A season of tempests and droughts. That was the volatile nature of Penn Women’s Soccer’s often-electrifying, often-frustrating 2015 campaign.

The program's greatest team in recent memory lost NCAA All-Americans Sam Mattis and Tommy Awad — as well as other star athletes — but perhaps the most notable loss came from the coaching staff that vaulted the team up to its relative success on the Ivy League and national stages in 2016. 

Success is just a small part of why we cover Penn’s teams, as are the teams themselves. More importantly than the teams, we cover the athletes.

Coming off of winning a share of the Ivy title in 2015, Penn football was predicted to finish second in the Ancient Eight preseason media poll this year, trailing only Harvard.

Penn men’s basketball unveiled their 2016-17 schedule Monday, and, much like the team, it will look quite a bit different than in past years. The 27-game schedule features 13 games at the Palestra, including the standard seven versus Ivy opponents.

After a disappointing 13-13 finish to the season last season, head coach Kerry Carr has decided to make an offseason splash that she hopes will set Penn Volleyball up for future success. Newest assistant coach Scott Schweihofer joins Carr’s staff in the hopes of bringing the Ivy title back to Philadelphia for the first time since 2010. After spending the last two years at George Mason University as the team’s top assistant and recruiting coordinator, Schweihofer comes to Penn after helping the Patriots to their best single-season win total in six years.

As the opening credits appear to the tune of the music score, Ray Priore is readying for his first season as head coach of the Penn football team, his 29th year as part of the staff.

The preseason hype surrounding Penn football is unreal – 13 returning starters from a championship team will do that.

Men's basketball head coach Steve Donahue officially announced his six Class of 2020 recruits to the team recently to complete the roster for the 2016-17 season. Or so we thought. Donahue announced last week via a press release through Penn Athletics that one more addition has been made to the squad, in the form of a transfer student from Lassen Community College in northern California. 

Penn basketball hasn’t sent a player to the NBA since 2000. That player was none other than Ira Bowman, who still frequents the Palestra as assistant coach to the Quakers.

Penn athletics is seemingly teeming with wunderkinds. Just about every team seems to have their own underclassmen superstar.

The Federation of International Lacrosse Under-19 World Championship took place in Canada over the past two weeks, and tournament champions Team U.S.A. relied on a core composition of Quakers throughout the six games. Five individuals — four athletes and a coach — represented Penn in the Canadian province of British Columbia as the U.S. defended its title in the Under-19 World Championship.