Jordan Marron

All spring long, the men's golf team has worked to prepare for this final weekend. The Quakers have had an up and down season, but they have kept their eyes set on the tournament that truly matters: the Ivy League Championships. The two-day event will take place this weekend at the par-72, 6,900-yard Galloway National Golf Club in Absecon, N.

Mike Blodgett may be a junior, but thanks to the Princeton Invitational, he has never had a chance to attend Penn's signature party. "This tournament always falls on Spring Fling," he said. "I've never experienced what it's all about, but I don't regret it.

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.

Perhaps women's golf coach Francis Vaughn is a fan of the recent Adidas advertising campaign, "Impossible is Nothing." After another disappointing finish in his team's second tournament of the spring season, Vaughn still believes that the Quakers have a chance to compete at the Ivy League Championships in April.

Despite less-than-ideal weather conditions that slowed play and limited the tournament to only 45 holes, the men's golf team persevered and finished third at the George Washington Invitational. The women had better weather but worse results, placing 17th out of 20 teams at the First Market Bank Intercollegeiate tournament.

The women's golf team is traveling to Williamsburg, Va. this weekend in hopes of better golfing weather, but history shows that a difficult trip could be in the forecast for this young Quakers squad. For the fifth-straight year, the Quakers will compete in the First Market Bank Intercollegiate tournament, hosted by William & Mary.

A program still in its infancy, the Penn women's golf team has yet to win an Ivy League title. But coach Francis Vaughn says his players have their eyes set on doing exactly that this season. If the Quakers are going to show such a dramatic improvement from last fall - when they never finished higher than sixth - they will have to do it with a young and shorthanded roster.

In an unusual ending to their season, the Quakers won a tough meet against Lehigh in front of a boisterous Palestra crowd before heading to Princeton for a dominating victory. In the first dual meet of the day, the Quakers and Mountain Hawks battled back and forth throughout the match.

Historically, Columbia has not posed much of a threat for Penn. This is the school that had a symposium on the culture of losing two years ago. The Lions haven't had a winning Ivy season in 15 years. And they've lost 10 of their last 11 games against the Quakers.

Injuries and illness could not stop the men's and women's tennis teams from earning victories this weekend. But they eventually took their toll on the men, who after winning against Georgetown on Saturday fell in a contested battle with Old Dominion, 4-3, one day later.