They're going north. Coming off of a strong first home meet, the Penn gymnastics team heads to Ithaca on Saturday to take on Ivy League rival Cornell and SUNY Cortland.

It may not be a triumphant return of a beloved tradition, but the Red and Blue could sure use a triumph or two this weekend.

There seems to be little question that Penn women’s basketball is the team to beat in the Ivy League right now. At 3-0 in conference play, the Quakers are in sole possession of first place in the storied conference and is hot off two double-digit wins at home last weekend.

It was early March when Jake Silpe, in the midst of his second semester as a senior in high school, received some very unexpected news. Jerome Allen, the University of Pennsylvania men’s basketball head coach, had just been fired, with several games still left to play on the Quakers’ schedule. Allen had recruited Silpe to Penn, and once he signed his letter of intent, Silpe was fully under the assumption Allen would be his coach for his college basketball career.

On an overcast afternoon in November, the lines between student and student-athlete blurred on the turf of Franklin Field.

It was time to bring in the big guns. In the face of lagging student interest and attendance, Penn Athletics began a process of reorganization last summer that ended with Roger Reina coming back into the fold as senior associate athletic director for external affairs after nine years away.

Better late than never. For Penn Athletics, the timeless idiom has never been more true, as several transfer students have found their respective ways to 33rd Street and quickly made an impact on the Quakers’ athletic program.

What is it like to dedicate your entire life to one institution? Perhaps no question is more pertinent to Penn swimming coach, Mike Schnur.

In just a year and a half at the helm of the Penn wrestling, head coach Alex Tirapelle has already molded the program into his own.

The podcast renaissance has finally hit Penn Athletics, just maybe not in the place you would expect.

Penn basketball was handed 23- and 6-point losses by Yale and Brown this weekend. And I was still excited by what I saw.

In a sport where points earned can range heavily from match to match, it is imperative to hold steady to the finish.

So close. In their first home meet of the season, Penn gymnastics came within three-tenths of defeating West Chester, falling by a score of 190.875-190.600.

The final tune-up before the battle for the Ivy League saw Penn pitted against some of the best the rest of the nation has to offer. The Red and Blue trekked to South Bend, Ind., on Saturday to compete in the Northwestern Duals. On the men's side, the No. 3 Quakers dominated, going 5-0.

You win some and you lose some, but sometimes you just win them all. Last Saturday, for only the second time in school history, both the men and women’s sides for Penn squash topped Princeton in the same season. The wins against Princeton are just the most recent pieces of evidence for why this season is one of — if not the — the Quakers’ best. Historically, Penn-Princeton matchups have typically not gone in favor of the Red and Blue. Corey Henry contributed reporting.

So far, this long schedule seems to be paying dividends for the team, as demonstrated on Sunday afternoon at Hecht Tennis Center. Coming fresh off a win against Old Dominion, the Quakers sent Rutgers packing with a 6-1 finish.

Dominant. There aren’t too many better words to describe Penn women’s basketball’s weekend.