Spring is in the air. Punxsutawney Phil may disagree and Locust Walk may be lined with snow, but professional baseball teams have made their annual pilgrimages to Florida and Arizona, and in my mind that alerts the beginning of spring. And for Penn athletics, spring is just around the corner too.

Normally, I'm one of the first people to criticize the Ivy League for something, be it the postseason football ban or the scheduling across some sports. I tend to think that the league presidents are not trying to compete as a conference, but rather are just trying to keep the Ivy League reputation in place.

Entering the weekend with Cornell, Yale and Penn within a half-game in the Ivy League standings, three was a crowd for the Quakers. But Penn dealt a major blow to Cornell's championship hopes, and the Ivy title hunt will likely be a two-horse race. The good news for the Big Red is that they still get to face Yale this Friday, and a win would pull them into a tie for second.

Just because Ibrahim Jaaber doesn't flirt with double-digit steals in a weekend, it doesn't mean that he's not making the opposing offense skittish. The Ivy League's all-time leader in thefts has made a name for himself by taking the rock away from his counterparts - particularly those within the conference.

The strategy for beating the Big Green seems simple: don't foul Ashley Taylor. Yet teams cannot keep but sending her to the line, and Taylor has made them pay. The 5-foot-11 forward tied a school record by making 16 free throws, including 12 in the final two minutes against Yale, to lead Dartmouth to an eight-point win last Friday.

When their five seniors graduate at season's end, coach Pat Knapp and the Quakers will lose over seventy percent of their offensive production. But Knapp is confident that his newest recruits have the ability to one day fill their shoes. "I'm very happy," Knapp said.

The Penn gymnastics team just can't seem to shake Towson. At the Shelli Calloway Memorial Invitational, the Quakers finished behind the host Tigers for the third time this season. Towson (193.5) won the meet and Cornell, an Ivy League and ECAC rival, came in second at 189.

When Columbia arrived in Philadelphia on Friday to take on Penn, there was certainly some potential for a classic Ivy League battle. It was supposed to be an intriguing matchup between a mature, peaking team and one that could turn out to be the League's next big thing.

If you were a little baby trying to catch a nap in Dad's arms up in Section 207, this was your kind of week. The Quakers played five home games in nine days, going 5-0 and drawing a combined crowd of 26,982. And you still wouldn't have been awakened until Ibrahim Jaaber threw himself an inbounds pass off Andrew Naeve's back Saturday night.

In its quest to catch up to perennial Ivy League powerhouses, the women's swimming team had the best season in program history. Unfortunately for the Quakers, the teams they were chasing got better as well. The Penn swimmers came up just short in reaching their elusive third place goal at the Ivy League Championships, finishing only 49 points behind Yale.

The Big Red got a monster game from center Andrew Naeve, shot 52 percent from the floor and had two second-half threes each from Ryan Wittman and Geoff Reeves to not only stay close the entire time, but to take a lead at the Palestra with 12 minutes to go.

It was a wild weekend for the Penn women's basketball team, in which - for better and for worse - nothing really went as expected. After getting picked apart by then last-place Columbia 65-46 in New York City on Friday, the Quakers (9-13, 4-5 Ivy) made the long trip up to Ithaca, N.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Recovering from "the most disappointing day of squash I've ever had" wasn't easy for senior and co-captain Paula Pearson or her Penn teammates. And it was a bittersweet weekend for them at the Howe Cup in New Haven. A No. 2 seed in the championship tournament, the Quakers expected nothing less than at least a berth in the final - and a national title was well within their grasp.

Saturday started and ended well for the women's tennis team. But the time in between left much to be desired. After sweeping the doubles against No. 14 Virginia Commonwealth, the Quakers lost the singles 5-1 to fall in the overall match, 5-2. The team rebounded with an easy 5-0 win over Georgetown (1-2) only hours afterward.

It's not often that any Penn team gets a chance to face the No. 1-ranked team in the nation, let alone three top-20 teams in as many days. But that is exactly what the men's tennis team has on its plate this weekend as it heads into the USTA/ITA National Indoor Championships, to be held in Chicago.

The road to the Ivy League title was always destined to go through the Palestra. But for the first time this year, one of its main challengers actually will. Cornell, a half game out of the Ivy League lead, will make its annual trip to Philadelphia with its season in the balance.

If it was at all apprehensive about its upcoming weekend match against a nationally ranked team, the Penn women's tennis team failed to show it. "This is a team we always look forward to playing. They're tough," captain Julia Koulbitskaya said about No. 14 Virginia Commonwealth.