The Penn women's soccer team was held scoreless in the first half but ended up beating Rider, 3-0, tonight at Rhodes Field. Three different Quakers scored in the second half, with the first goal coming from senior captain Natalie Capuano in the 50th minute.

Just two weeks after undergoing surgery to repair a broken nose sustained in Penn's victory over Dartmouth, senior defensive back Tyson Maugle is back on the practice field and cleared to play this Saturday at Yale. The defensive leader - who is planning to become a doctor when he graduates from Penn - said he's "very surprised and very satisfied" with how quickly he healed.

After 33-plus minutes of the Penn field hockey team's game with Temple, the Quakers held a modest 2-1 lead. Then came a surprise onslaught. Kathryn Rose scored off a fast break, and right when it appeared the first half had ended, the Owls committed a penalty to give the Red and Blue one more play.

They say Chuck Bednarik, a Hall of Fame linebacker and center and a Penn grad, was the last "60-Minute Man" in football. Don't look now, but Colgate's Nate Eachus might be inheriting that throne. During the second quarter of the Raiders' 38-22 victory over Cornell on Saturday, the freshman left his spot at linebacker to take over for starting running back Jordan Scott, the leading rusher in the Football Championship Subdivision.

If a Phillies fan knows one thing, it's that the "phever" is restricted to very few outbreaks, with many a year in between. It's a disease that has been in danger of eradication for, oh, about 125 years. On Broad Street in Center City on Wednesday night, however, the symptoms were flaring: car horns trumpeting, white and red towels dangling from windows, crazed fans pouring from bars and apartments into the streets.

Drew Healy is often likened to a superhero. But it has nothing to do with his eight shutouts this season. Nor is it because the senior goalkeeper has been the catalyst behind the men's soccer team's 8-2-2 start. Rather, he has been likened physically to a variety of super-powered crime fighters for the unique eyewear he dons for games and training.

Judging by the number of gray hairs Al Bagnoli must have sprouted after Saturday's painful-to-watch stalemate, you'd think the 2008 Ivy League football season was about to wrap up in advance of a long winter of R&R.; Nope. It's only halftime for the year - five games down, five to go, and time to hand out the annual mid-season awards for both Penn and the conference: Offensive player of the half-year Penn: Hard to say, considering the Quakers have produced the second fewest first downs in the league but lead it in red zone offense.

Columbia quarterback Shane Kelly sat in the post-game press conference after Penn's 15-10 win over the Lions with a blank stare on his face. His defense had just put up a huge performance, holding Penn to 204 yards and just 10 first downs. But Kelly thanked every big stop the defense made with an interception or some other miscue.

The men's soccer team logged 15 hours of driving time on its Saturday trip to Dartmouth. More importantly, it logged win No. 8 on the season, a 1-0 edging of the Big Green to remove the taste of two straight losses and put Penn back into Ivy title contention.

When Columbia's final gasp ended with a fifth and final turnover on Saturday, when the score had finally settled, 15-10 in Penn's favor, after a seemingly endless series of three-and-outs, both sides struggled to decide what the result meant for them.

Coming into Saturday's game with Dartmouth, the women's soccer team had gone undefeated in its past seven matches and, at 2-0-1, controlled its Ivy destiny. Dartmouth, meanwhile, was the league's doormat, searching for its first conference win in four tries.

In a break from its usual Sunday routine, the Penn field hockey team started the day with a team breakfast and film-watching session. The pregame warm-up at Franklin Field featured mini-games, allowing each player to work out individual skills. And coach Val Cloud decided to switch around her lineup to add a fourth player to the midfield line in order give her squad an offensive edge.

Freshmen usually don't get a chance to compete in rowing's varsity championship races. But at yesterday's Head of the Charles Race in Boston, the men's freshman four was given a chance to shine on the water and finished ninth out of 21 teams with a time of 17:11.

Even though track is an individual sport, the impact of a runner's teammates and competitors can make or break a race. While staying as a pack can help push a team to victory, focusing on opposing runners can disrupt a team's race plan. On Saturday, at the Pre-National meet in Terra Haute Ind.

Despite being sidelined in the hospital recovering from a mastectomy, Penn volleyball coach Kerry Carr wants her team to focus on winning, not her fight against cancer. "She didn't want us to be distracted," sophomore Julia Swanson said. And so, the Quakers headed into their first weekend without Carr as coach hoping to pick up their second conference win of the season.

If there is a line between success and gimmickry, Norries Wilson is trying to wash it away with a splash of Diet Coke. On Saturday's evidence, the Columbia coach is succeeding. Columbia deserved better from this game. Penn's offense did nothing. None of the Quakers' three scoring drives were longer than 10 yards: They simply took advantage of slapstick, Benny Hill-esque mistakes Columbia made deep in its own territory.

klitzman@dailypennsylvanian.com Brown and Princeton might have only been picked to finish third and fifth, respectively, in the Ivy League preseason media poll, but when the Bears (2-2, 1-0 Ivy) visit the Tigers (2-2, 1-0) tomorrow at 1 p.m., at least a share of first place will be on the line.