The turn of the calendar from 2016 to 2017 brought a change in leadership that threatened to throw a once-united community into anarchy.

There are 35 international student-athletes at Penn with 19 different countries represented, ranging from Hong Kong to Egypt to French Guiana. We wanted to highlight some of the athletes that best exemplify the character international students give to the university. These are their stories.

Heading into this weekend, Penn men’s tennis knew that this was going to be one of, if not the toughest, pair of matches the team would face all season. The Quakers took on Columbia and Cornell this weekend, dropping both matches to the top-25 ranked programs.

It was a busy day for Penn's rowers on Saturday, with the three squads having mixed results. The men's heavyweight crew found themselves on Lake Carnegie, racing against host Princeton and fellow Ivy League rival Columbia.

Consider the stakes raised. After collecting a sweep of Yale and a split with Brown over the weekend, Penn softball has faced every opponent in the North Division and already has its eyes on the South Division title.

Penn women’s lacrosse has a knack for making big games look easy. It did that on Saturday when they handily took down Dartmouth, 17-6.

In two starts, one each against Brown and Yale, the senior ace threw two complete games, compiling a 2.00 ERA for the weekend. Penn (14-12, 5-3 Ivy) went on to win both games, beating Yale by the score of 4-1 and Brown by the score of 5-3, and Sargent earned the victory in both.

On Saturday, Penn track and field continued a string of impressive and record-setting performances at the Virginia Quad Meet. The women's squad finished first overall, while the men came in second, falling only to the host school. The Quakers continued the trend of building up stronger performances as the season progresses, recording 15 top-10 record marks, including three new school records.

The weather may be turning nice, but for Penn tennis, there’s a storm brewing this weekend. Both Red and Blue teams will have their hands full with their first Ivy League doubleheader weekends of the season.

In yet another action-packed weekend for Penn Athletics, a slew of rowing, golf and track squads will be testing their talents around the country once again.

This weekend, 12 members of the team will travel to Seattle, Wash., to compete in the USAG Women’s Collegiate Championships. And despite the young team’s underwhelming sixth-place showing at last month’s ECAC Championships, individual morale is high.

For Penn, this contest, and the four to follow it, are must-wins for the side seeking a share of the Ancient Eight title as well as home-field advantage come the NCAA Tournament.

When it rains, it pours. Penn Softball, like the thunderstorm that loomed overhead, couldn’t get anything going in a devastating 8-1 loss to Villanova. The results last weekend showed the Quakers (11-11, 2-2 Ivy) can come back from a deficit late, but this game was over in a hurry.

With women's lacrosse ranked in the top 10 nationally, track and field seeing school records fall left and right, baseball having won ten of its last 11 games and more, the season has seen some supreme successes already — but only one athlete can stand out as the best. Our sports editors take to the roundtable to debate: Who is the Penn Athletics spring season MVP so far?

Sometimes, a strong start and finish just won't quite do it. Penn women's golf learned this when it finished fifth out of eight teams in the Harvard Invitational this past Saturday.

Before getting into who rowed the best and what teams finished first, it is important to understand that winning and losing are not always that important in the grand scheme of life.

In game two with the squad down 6-5 with two outs in the seventh, Jurie Joyner hit a home run to bring the game into extra innings. This completely changed the dynamic and the Quakers (11-10, 2-2 Ivy) took back control of the game.