Believe it or not, there's a basketball oasis in West Philadelphia, where Penn students and inner-city children come together each Friday to cap off the week. Enter at 58th and Walnut. Tread lightly down the creaky hallways lined with beat-up lockers, past the classrooms filled with wobbly desks and outdated books and swing open the double doors.

Facing the second-best team in the nation tonight, Penn men's lacrosse has nothing to lose. No. 2 Princeton (8-1, 1-0 Ivy) will travel south on Interstate-95 today to face the Quakers (2-6, 1-3) in a 7 p.m. matchup under the lights at Franklin Field. Though both squads are coming off wins, the circumstances are far from similar.

As long as it faces a non-conference opponent, the Penn baseball team can hold its own. But so far this season, the Quakers (10-16, 0-8 Ivy) have been the pinatas of the Ivy League: Everyone gets a free hit. They've stumbled to a nasty nine-game losing streak since conference play began and are hoping to regain their confidence today against Lafayette (13-15) in Easton, Pa.

For the men's tennis team, this weekend brought little but disappointment. After a loss to Princeton last weekend in their Ivy season opener, the Quakers lost two more league matches on the road this weekend. Friday they fell to Brown, 6-1, and Saturday they dropped a devastating 4-3 match to Yale.

he sunshine near the end of Penn's Friday victory was perfectly timed. Unfortunately for any believers in fate, the Quakers' win was just a result of good defense. The Red and Blue played their best lacrosse in the second half, downing Dartmouth, 9-6, for their first Ivy win of the season and their first win of any kind since Feb.

The individual matchup between Quakers junior Emma Spiro and Harvard sophomore Jess Halpern in Saturday's game exemplified the talent gap between the No. 3 Penn women's lacrosse team and the unranked Crimson. Coming into the contest, Halpern was Harvard's game-changer, with a team-leading 3.

In its second Ivy League weekend of the season against Brown and Yale, the Penn softball team came away with a pair of firsts - its first three-game win streak of the season and the first collegiate home run for freshman Jamie Boccanfuso. "It was really exciting," Boccanfuso said of her three-run drive to center field that gave the Quakers the lead in game one against Brown in Providence, R.

Lauren Sadaka's match against Yale's Vicky Brook came down to a few points and some debatable calls. However, it didn't end in Sadaka's favor. She lost on a grueling tiebreaker, 4-6, 7-5, 10-6 - her only loss of the weekend in either singles or doubles. "[Lauren's] one of the greatest competitors we've ever had at Penn, and she's the inspiration for everyone else on our team," interim coach Sara Schiffman said.

The hole just keeps getting deeper for the baseball team. After dropping doubleheaders on the road to Brown and Yale this weekend, Penn has lost nine games in a row and remains winless in the Ivy League. Coach John Cole and the team did not make themselves available for comment.

Penn basketball fans might see some familiar faces playing in tomorrow's Final Four. Of course, the Quakers aren't competing in Detroit - even if it is the 30th anniversary of Penn's lone national semifinal appearance. Instead, Penn's first opponent of the season, No.

After getting his first Ivy League experience as a Penn tennis player last weekend - in a hard-fought, 4-3 loss at Princeton - Hicham Laalej is starting to get a feel for what it takes to battle conference competition. "In the Ivy League it's all about who wants it more," the Morocco native said.

The clock on court two of Levy Tennis Pavilion read 6:30. Officially, practice begins at four o'clock and ends at six o'clock, but sophomore Alexa Ely and freshman Emily Wolf had just finished hitting. Ely's day of class and tennis began with an early-morning individual session with interim coach Sara Schiffman while most Penn students were still sleeping.

Today's men's lacrosse match may not determine the Ivy League champion, but at the moment it looms pretty large for the Quakers. The team will attempt to halt its six-game losing streak against Dartmouth at 4 p.m. this afternoon at Franklin Field. Both teams have been disappointing thus far this season - the Red and Blue (1-6, 0-3 Ivy) and Big Green (2-6, 0-1) are the only two Ivy squads without a conference win.

If Penn softball has one thing going for it this year, it's a deep pitching staff with some proven studs. Those aces will get their toughest test yet against the two top offensive teams in the Ivy League, Brown and Yale, when the Quakers (6-17-1, 1-3 Ivy) make a road trip this weekend.

This weekend the Penn women's lacrosse team could be in the zone - Harvard's zone defense, that is. The Quakers have not faced a zone defense so far this season, but the Crimson have a history of employing it. No. 3 Penn (9-0, 3-0 Ivy) will have to utilize its multifaceted attack in order to defeat the unranked Crimson's (4-5, 1-1) defense tomorrow in Boston.

With only one senior on the roster, Penn baseball needed some juniors to step up this season. Say hello to Tom Grandieri and Will Gordon. Both of them have taken on leadership roles this season and have batted tremendously thus far. Grandieri is hitting .

He may be 6-foot-6, but Hicham Laalej does not have a devastating jump shot - he has a wicked forehand instead. The junior transfer from Stetson and Morocco native plays No. 1 singles for the Penn men's tennis team and has lived up to his ranking. Ironically, his Quakers teammates dubbed him "Hicham the Dream," due to a pronunciation error, confusing "Hicham" (pronounced He-sham) with the first name of NBA great Hakeem Olajuwon.