NEWARK, N.J.-The scariest thing about the New Jersey Institute of Technology's Fleisher Center isn't who plays in it. The Highlanders' basketball team has set historical lows since entering Division I after the 2005-06 season and, naturally, don't boast a particularly impressive set of weapons.

None of the current members of the men's swimming team has ever tasted a winning record in the Ivy League. But Penn (3-3, 2-3 Ivy) has a chance to eclipse that .500 mark for the first time since the 1990-91 season with a pair of wins against Yale (2-2, 1-1) and Dartmouth (0-4, 0-3) on Saturday at Hanover, N.

Two of the "Little Three" are coming to town, but that doesn't mean the men's squash team is hosting vertically-challenged squads. After a six-week break, the Quakers will face Amherst and Williams - who along with Wesleyan make up the "Little Three" of New England elite colleges.

Remember the game? Jan. 24, 2007. Fran Dunphy returns to the Palestra, for the first time wearing Temple cherry. Tipoff. Penn looks good. So do the Owls. Quakers go down 19, then fight back to even. Mark Zoller at the line. First is good. Second is good! Penn wins! Penn wins! It was the greatest game I've seen in my four years watching Penn play, and probably the greatest for many fans who have been watching ten times that long.

Women's squash coach Jack Wyant required all his players to participate in intrasquad scrimmages and practices over break as preparation for the team's match against No. 27 Franklin and Marshall last night. Looks like the training sessions paid off big time.

Penn senior Carrie Biemer's career-high 32 points were still not enough to carry the women's basketball team in a 76-63 loss to Rider in Lawrenceville, N.J. on Tuesday. Biemer was 11-for-27 from the field - including 5-for-10 from beyond the arc - but no other Quakers scored in double figures or even attempted more than five shots.

Many athletes are unable to overcome the extreme emotional and physical roller coaster that results from a major injury. Everyone has the option of quitting - an easy escape route that appears to the frustrated and discouraged - but Steve Martucci isn't one to take shortcuts.

Basketball has taken Ira Bowman places he never thought he'd be. The Palestra was his first unexpected destination, but after transferring from Providence College he found himself as one of the Ivy League's all-time greats and the 1995-96 Player of the Year.

In a previous basketball life, the scene might have made sense. With Penn down almost 30 late in the second half against a Big 5 rival, Fran Dunphy, red in the face, smacks the scorer's table after one of his players is whistled for traveling. The crowd is so dead that it's impossible to miss the coach's corresponding obscenity.

When women's basketball senior captain Carrie Biemer sees her team show flashes of exceptional play to stake an early lead, she senses that they are on the verge of turning the corner. But suddenly - and without explanation - the Quakers revert to their wildly inconsistent ways.

Jan. 6 - Up 14 at halftime against Lafayette, Penn could have turned in a poor second half like it did against Central Florida last week. Instead, the Quakers got a trio of threes to start the half, as sophomore Tyler Bernardini and freshmen Zack Rosen and Rob Belcore drained treys on three successive possessions to key Penn's 9-2 run at the start of the second frame.

By KATIE SIEGMANN Staff Writer siegmann@dailypennsylvanian.com The women's swimming team rang in the New Year the best way possible: with a win. After spending the closing days of 2008 on a training trip in Boca Raton, Fla., the Quakers greeted 2009 with a first-place finish at the Florida Atlantic University Invitational on Jan.

Penn men's and women's fencing coach Dave Micahnik describes himself as a perfectionist. As a recent inductee into the U.S. Fencing Hall of Fame, Micahnik is always looking to improve his teams' performances. On Saturday and Sunday, both teams began their seasons at the Philadelphia Invitational Multi-Meet in Hutchinson Gymnasium.

It's a good thing that coaches can't play for their teams. If they could, the Penn women's squash team would be facing a tough task in tonight's match at Franklin and Marshall. The Diplomats' men's and women's head coach, John White, was ranked No. 1 in the world in March 2004, and retired from professional squash in October as No.

To start its 2009 season, the gymnastics team fell to Ball State 190.725-184.350 Friday at Hutchinson Gymnasium. Despite the disappointingly close result, the Quakers still saw some positive signs for the future, as five freshmen competed, including Megan Metsgar who scored a 36.

To say that the Penn men's swimming team took the cake at the Jan. 3 Florida Atlantic Invitational would be an understatement. The men placed first with a score of 830.5, defeating Ivy League rival Brown by a margin of 264.5 points in a league-sanctioned dual meet.

With 310 victories as Penn men's basketball coach, Fran Dunphy knew the taste of victory in the Palestra. But two years ago, in his first opportunity to savor success as a visiting head coach, Dunphy and his current team - Big 5 rival Temple -- blew an early 19-point lead and lost to Penn, 76-74, on a trio of Mark Zoller free throws with 1.