Ashley Humienny

My parents' histories have a curious way of haunting me, no matter how vigorous my evasive maneuvering. Strangely enough, the combination of my mother's and father's efforts to let me evolve into my own person has - upon reflection on my time at The Daily Pennsylvanian and at Penn - completely backfired.

If you ask Tim Hickey about his time coaching girls' track at William Penn High School in the 1970s, you're bound to reel from his musings. "Girls were unofficial at that time, so I was unofficial," he said with a chuckle. It's not without a reason that Hickey began his narrative of his career with girls' high school track tongue-in-cheek.

If Penn softball has one thing going for it this year, it's a deep pitching staff with some proven studs. Those aces will get their toughest test yet against the two top offensive teams in the Ivy League, Brown and Yale, when the Quakers (6-17-1, 1-3 Ivy) make a road trip this weekend.

When softball meets Lehigh tomorrow in a doubleheader at Warren Field, the Mountain Hawks will be the third set of predatory birds that the Quakers have met in seven days. Each time, Penn has come out looking more like the prey. After two humbling losses in the Quakers' home opener against the Saint Joseph's Hawks, 4-1 and 10-0, the young Penn team dropped two razor thin losses to the Monmouth Hawks, both by the score of 1-0.

Sometimes, all you need is a dazzling finale to forget the rest of the show. Despite returning with a surprising 3-7 record, the Penn softball team left the Rebel Spring Games in Kissimmee, Fla., with a bang, turning the final game against Florida A&M; over to the young players for the win, 3-2.

Forget the Grapefruit League - if you're looking for some good ball this break, the Ivy League will be out in full force in the Sunshine State. The Penn softball team will be one of five Ivy teams - Brown, Columbia, Cornell and Yale are the others - to head to Florida for the annual Rebel Spring Games, a month-long collegiate tournament held in Kissimmee.

"Player development" might have been bumped down a few spots on softball coach Leslie King's to-do list after this weekend. Rookie Jamie Boccanfuso accounted for four of the Quakers' seven runs batted in as Penn softball went 1-2 in its opening weekend at the George Mason Tournament in Fairfax, Va.

The year was 1959. Dwight Eisenhower was president, Hawaii and Alaska were new states in the union and CBS' The Twilight Zone had just become a primetime staple in suburban living rooms everywhere. That year was also the last time that the Dartmouth men's basketball team swept Penn.

These days, it only comes around once in a blue moon -- like fresh bagels at Hill House brunch or a Philadelphia championship. The stars have aligned, however, to give meaning to a rivalry that hasn't seen real action since a heart-pounding Penn comeback over the Tigers in 2005, when Quakers faithful rushed the court after their team rallied from an 18-point second-half deficit at the Palestra.

Forgive Brown coach Jesse Agel for sounding less than concerned about his backcourt. "We'll do our best to free our guys up," Agel said of his guards, waving off the question. Though Brown's dismal 0-6 Ivy record (6-14 overall) has a lot to do with how different the Bears' perimeter looks this year - Agel lost his All-Ivy guard duo of Mark McAndrew and Damon Huffman to graduation last spring - his squad's outside presence isn't what he'll need against Penn (5-13, 1-3 Ivy) tonight in Providence, R.