When the Quakers emerged from the locker room last Thursday and trotted onto Franklin Field for another evening of spring football practice, they did so without their helmets and shoulder pads. The team usually dons those before it hits the turf, even in the spring.

They say that the best things in life are free. But you don't have to tell the Penn baseball team that. After sweeping Harvard yesterday in a road doubleheader that saw seven errors, three walks and three hit batsmen by the Crimson, it's a truism that the Quakers keenly appreciate.

After sweeping yesterday's doubleheader, 3-2 and 6-2, Harvard pitcher Shelly Madick gave Penn's Annie Kinsey an affectionate tap at the postgame handshake. The two California natives began playing against each other in high school, competing on both school and travel teams.

On the sideline at practice, men's lacrosse co-captain Max Mauro seems pretty relaxed. But bring up Princeton and his demeanor changes completely. His eyes focus as his voice steadies, half-confident, half-desperate and all intensity. "Nobody on this team has beaten Princeton," Mauro said.

High honor for La Salle's Hightower For the first time in four years, the Big 5 women's basketball Player of the Year does not play for Temple's Dawn Staley. This year's honor went to La Salle's Carlene Hightower, who was second in the Atlantic-10 with 17 points per game.

Brown men's basketball coach Craig Robinson is westward bound. According to The Corvallis Gazette-Times, Robinson has accepted the head coaching job at Oregon State, where he will succeed Jay John. John was fired on Jan. 20 after leading the Beavers for five-and-a-half years.

Despite the Penn softball team's neat work yesterday's sweep of Dartmouth, head coach Leslie King talks like it's the midseason doldrums for her women. "I feel like we got away with it, to a certain extent," she said. "We didn't play our best softball." On paper, the Quakers looked clean - no errors, eleven hits and two home runs in the 4-0 and 7-3 wins against the Big Green.

The men's golf team traveled to Notre Dame over the weekend, but the Quakers didn't get any luck of the Irish. Everything about the one-day tournament challenged the Quakers, who carded a team score of 601. That put them in seventh out of nine schools competing.

Facing a Dartmouth team hitting over .320 on the season, the Quakers knew that keeping the ball off their opponent's sweet spot would have to be a high priority. But when you hand out 16 free passes in two contests, winning the hits column of the box score usually isn't enough.

The men's tennis team is now once again in control of its own destiny. Thanks to decisive 6-1 and 5-2 victories over Yale and Brown, respectively - paired with Princeton losses to the same two teams - the Quakers (11-8, 2-1 Ivy) catapulted themselves back into a tie for second place with four matches remaining.

San Diego may have been a pleasant respite from the dreary weekend weather in Philadelphia, but men's heavyweight coach Fred Honebein hopes that his team is "pissed off" after its trip out West. The team struggled, finishing 10th overall in the San Diego Crew Classic.

The Quakers are getting used to playing in close games. They're almost getting too used to it. On Saturday afternoon at Dartmouth, the Red and Blue built up a six-goal lead in the first half, only to see the Big Green torch them for seven of the next eight goals, tying the game at eight and forcing overtime.

Penn coach Gwen Harris was cheering Shaunee Morgan right to the finish line in the 400-meter run. But with about 10 meters to go, Harris came to her senses. Harris's frantic "Come on!"s and "All right!"s gave way to a calmer "Relax, relax, relax." Relax, Shaunee Morgan.

Rachel Manson and Melissa Lehman may have sore shoulders after yesterday's game against Harvard. Despite a lack of cohesion from the Penn defense, the two attackers carried the Quakers to a 14-10 victory. "Our defense was very undisciplined today," head coach Karin Brower said.

Against Yale on Friday, the Penn women's tennis team found itself tied 2-2, winning two of the first three singles matches after dropping the all-important doubles point. The Quakers needed to take two of the remaining three matches in order to leave New Haven, Conn.

While most of his peers were playing little league baseball and Pop Warner football, senior Ben Nace was focusing on a more unorthodox athletic pursuit - becoming a world-class rower. Although he now hails from Dallas, Nace credits his family's northeastern roots for inspiring him to pursue his passion for rowing.

When the men's tennis team faces off against Brown and Yale at Lott Courts this weekend, junior Justin Fox hopes "history will repeat itself." Penn has beaten both New England schools by a 5-2 margin, each of the last two years and wants to make it three in a row.