Whenever Penn suits up against Maryland, it seems like a lost cause. Over the past four years, the Terps have outscored the Quakers 60-25. Still, Penn remains optimistic of its chances to upset the nation's No. 7 team when it travels to College Park, Md., for a showdown tomorrow at 1 p.

Well, the hard part is over now. The No. 6 Penn women's lacrosse team upset its chief Ivy rival in No. 2 Princeton to clinch at least a share of its second-consecutive Ivy title. All that's left for the Quakers is beating middling Brown tomorrow at Franklin Field to win the regular-season championship outright.

Three out of 51. That's Penn's record against rival Princeton since 1982, the year that the teams began playing one another. If there was ever a time to begin making up such a monstrous deficit, this weekend's back-to-back doubleheader against the Tigers would be it.

All spring long, the men's golf team has worked to prepare for this final weekend. The Quakers have had an up and down season, but they have kept their eyes set on the tournament that truly matters: the Ivy League Championships. The two-day event will take place this weekend at the par-72, 6,900-yard Galloway National Golf Club in Absecon, N.

There is too much at stake for the women's tennis team to get sentimental now. Today's clash against Cornell will be the seniors' last home match. Going into the final weekend of play, the second-place Quakers (9-7, 4-1 Ivy) still have a mathematical shot at repeating as Ivy League champs.

Men's tennis co-captain Brandon O'Gara still has painful memories of last year's heartbreaking losses to Columbia that kept Penn out of the NCAA tournament. "It was awful. It was a tough way to go out," he said. And while the Quakers (12-9, 3-2 Ivy) may be effectively out of the Ivy League championship race this year, those losses are plenty of motivation when they finish the season at home against the Lions on Sunday.

Corey Fisher, a vital cog in Villanova's Sweet Sixteen run? Lavoy Allen, the frontcourt monster who helped muscle Temple into the NCAAs? Nope - neither are the Big 5 Rookie of the Year. Instead, it's Tyler Bernardini, the streaky but smooth scoring guard who ended his freshman campaign as the highest-scoring rookie in Penn history.

Anyone who has ever played baseball will tell you that playing on a warm, sunny day is one of the best feelings there is. Heck, it's enough to make even the four-game Ivy weekends palatable. But for the woebegone Penn baseball team - who dropped an 8-2 contest to lowly La Salle on Wednesday after three losses to Cornell over the weekend - the playable conditions may be, first and foremost, a source of frustration.

"Come on now, you're better than that!" bellowed a voice from the corner of the Penn dugout in the bottom of the fifth inning. The play itself was inconsequential - merely an ugly hack by sophomore Matt Toffaletti on an off-speed pitch. But the sentiment was significant.

Sometimes Diana Ark just wants a breather. Yes, Wharton keeps its freshmen busy with a steady diet of group meetings and projects. But, unlike her classmates, Ark has to juggle two additional commitments: She's found time to play on both the varsity softball and fencing teams.

Whether it be the Atlantic 10, Big 5, Sonny Hill League or Portsmouth Invitational, Mark Tyndale and Pat Calathes have always been in the same league. This upcoming year, they're hoping to make it to just one more together. Tyndale and Calathes, seniors at Temple and Saint Joeseph's, respectively, are starting their bids to play on the ultimate level in October.

PRINCETON, N.J. - For the women's lacrosse team, déj… vu has never been sweeter. As they did last year, the Quakers beat Princeton by four goals to clinch at least a share of the Ivy League title and the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. No.

Baseball coach John Cole called the entire weekend against Cornell a "big downer." Penn was shaken up to the tune of three losses in four games amid rain delays, extra innings and a hailstorm of Big Red offense, which poured on 36 runs to the Quakers' 19.

Just like last year, the women's lacrosse team finds itself in a position to take the Ivy League title as the season draws to a close. No. 6 Penn (10-1, 5-0 Ivy), the reigning Ivy champion, is in first place and has only two conference games left: today at No.

In a battle of Rocky-sized proportions, the underdog No. 6 Quakers' hopes for a second consecutive Ivy title hinge on the outcome of today's game at No. 2 Princeton. The team has had the date circled since the start of the season. "We started seriously practicing and working hard [for the Princeton game] the first day we got to school," senior goalie Sarah Waxman said.

All Penn's Taylor Tieman needed was a little extra motivation. And, unknowingly, the Villanova softball team might have handed her just that in the fifth inning of game two. "I looked over and they had already started packing up all their stuff, and I got kinda pissed," Tieman said.

After a disappointing stretch of eight straight losses over the past week, the Penn softball team is looking to recover. Yet the struggling Quakers (18-16, 5-7 Ivy) won't get much of a reprieve with a doubleheader today against the Wildcats. "I don't know a lot about Villanova," Penn coach Leslie King said.