Facing the defending champions is always a challenge. Facing the defending champions along with the team that just upset them is a nightmare. Such is the schedule for Penn volleyball, who travel Friday to Leede Arena in Hanover, N.H., to battle a hot Dartmouth side, followed by a Saturday trip the Malkin Athletic Center in Cambridge, Mass., to face the 2014 Ivy League victors, Harvard. The Quakers (7-6, 1-0 Ivy)record seem to be in good standing and could be ready for this challenge, coming off of a three-game winning streak, including a 3-1 triumph at Princeton last Friday and a shutout of NJIT on the roadreordered the following day. deleted “Having played only one league game and split the rest, Penn is sitting on a 7-6 record overall.” Despite its extensive non-conferencehyphen schedule, coach Kerry Carr was not concerned about the team’s fatigue going into the weekend's strenuous doubleheader. “I got a lot of different players experience in the preseason, so I feel like we're rested going into the Ivy League,” she said. One of the standout players for Penn this past weekend was senior captain Alexis Genske, who recorded 14 kills and 14 digs against the Tigers and had another 12 kills with fourspelled out digs against the Highlanders. “I think our whole team played really steady, which made it easy to be more aggressive on plays [I] might not normally take a risk on, so that definitely gave me the confidence to swing harder,” Genske said.  “Also, passing and defensively, we were communicating really well, so I knew which balls my teammates were taking, and which ones were my responsibility.” The Red and Blue will certainly need their strength when they take on the Big Green, who narrowly squeezed past the Crimson in a dramatic five-setter last Friday.

Tear, strain, break, and fracture. In the midst of a season packed with daily practices and arduous games, injuries are an unfortunate and inevitable part of all sports. For Penn women's soccer, injuries are the ill-fated reality with which they must deal.

After an average start to the season dotted with wins and losses, the Quakers hit their stride on its first weekend of league play.

If you're going to come at the queens, you best not miss. Unfortunately for Penn women's soccer, the squad allowed too many opportunities to its opponent on Saturday, conceding 25 shots en route to a 2-0 defeat at the hands of two-time defending Ivy League champion Harvard. The Quakers (4-2-2, 0-1-0 Ivy) had high hopes for their first Ancient Eight contest of the season.

It was a beautiful day for a field hockey game, but it was even better if you were a Penn fan. 

Only four members of the current Penn women’s soccer squad remember what it feels like to beat Harvard.

Playtime is over for Penn volleyball.

With a kill in the opening set of Penn volleyball's opening game, Jasmine DeSilva's 2014 season was off to a quick start.

This past weekend marked the first time in 2015 that each of the Red and Blue's fall sports teams were in action.

When Penn women’s soccer assistant coach Emily Oliver stepped on the soccer field four years ago on December 4th, her objective was clear. It was the finals of 2011 College Cup, the NCAA women’s soccer national championship, and her team, the Stanford Cardinal, was facing Duke.

For fans of Penn volleyball, Tuesday’s tilt against Delaware was the kind of game best watched between your fingers with a cringe on your face. Every match point was a near miss for the Quakers (4-4), and the squad was unable to claw its way after conceding the first two sets to the Blue Hens (5-5) and went on to lose 3-1 despite exceptional offensive play from senior captains Alex Caldwell and Alexis Genske, who carried the attack on the court with 18 and 12 kills, respectively. In the first set, Delaware jumped out to a 10-6 lead early, leaving Penn no chance but to chip away at the deficit point by point.

It's hard for any foray into the topic of "veteran leadership" to hit on something new, but Penn volleyball coach Kerry Carr finds herself with a truly unprecedented embarrassment of riches. Carr, the winningest and longest-tenured coach in program history, has rarely appointed more than two captains during her 18 years at the helm, and never more than three.

Wednesday marks the onset of another week of battle for one of Penn’s premier fall teams, field hockey.

Last year, Penn women’s cross country finished last in the Ivy League. This is an indisputable fact. In their year-end Heptagonal meet, the de facto Ivy championship competition, the Red and Blue only managed to finish eighth in the Ancient Eight. And while any single meet result should be taken with a grain of salt, this sort of result would be the elephant in the room.

The Quakers finally had a chance to play on their home court this weekend. In fact, they had several. Hosting the Crowne Plaza Philadelphia Invitational, Penn volleyball defeated Fairfield in its home opener on Friday night before steamrolling Delaware State Saturday morning to extend its winning streak to four.

The fall season may still be quite young for Penn Athletics, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been any surprises. So now, with most Red and Blue teams having gotten their seasons under way, we take the opportunity to talk about the squads that have made us reconsider our preseason expectations.

The first big road trip of the season is always a challenge, and while Penn women’s soccer’s weekend in South Carolina was by no means perfect, the two games the squad played allowed for plenty of causes for optimism. Despite picking up their first loss of the season on Friday night in a 2-1 game against No.