May 17, 2008

by Andrew Scurria, Special to Lacrosse Magazine Online

PHILADELPHIA - Despite garnering the No. 2 seed in this year's NCAA Tournament, the Penn women's lacrosse team still thinks of itself as an outsider with a lot left to prove.

With more games like this one, that self-image might have to change.

Once again, the Quakers faced an established tournament insider in Boston University, a team that was in the postseason for the fourth straight year. Once again, they produced a convincing victory, and once again they will face another, more familiar powerhouse in the Final Four.

The Quakers will face Duke next week after the Blue Devils dispatched favored Maryland, making this Penn's second straight semifinal matchup against an Atlantic Coast Conference team.

But that steak follows a 22-year tournament hiatus, a period where the names Princeton and Dartmouth were the ones that mattered in Ivy League women's lacrosse. After the Quakers' 8-5 win on Saturday, senior goalkeeper Sarah Waxman said that the perceptions about her program matter.

"Lacrosse is a sport that has a lot of teams that have been winning for a long time," she said. "Over the last couple of years Penn has kind of broken into that bubble.

"People aren't thinking `Penn' even now," she added. "After this year, [it's] another knock on people's door, saying, `we're Penn, we're here.'

"Now we're back, and we know we should be here."

It seemed the Terriers had enough offensive clout to challenge Waxman, one of the nation's top keepers. But they had so much trouble winning draws and keeping possession that their attack just did not have enough chances to score; BU got off just 21 shots in the game, compared to 30 for the home team. Penn won 11 of 15 draw controls, and BU failed to clear the ball six times.

"One of the most important stats is the draw," Quakers coach Karen Brower said. "Even when they ended up getting the draw, we got it back."

BU held Penn to a 4-2 advantage in the first half and narrowed the deficit to one on a free-position shot less than five minutes into the second frame. But sophomore Emma Spiro scored back-to-back unassisted goals in an eight-minute span to give Penn back the cushion.

The Quakers seized momentum for good in the second half when senior Rachel Manson, their leading scorer, took a pass from classmate Allison Ambrozy right in front of the goal and put it in for a 7-3 lead with 14 minutes to go, and Ali DeLuca, who is a bigger offensive threat than her classmate Spiro, pushed the lead to five with an unassisted goal shortly thereafter. The Terriers had such a hard time stopping the Quakers one-on-one that goalie Rachel Klein and defender Kelly Munroe briefly exchanged words after DeLuca's goal, each holding her arms out in frustration.

Not needing to force any shots, the Quakers played it safe from there out; denying BU possession was their only worry. BU scored less than forty seconds later to make the score 8-4 with over 11 minutes to go, prompting Klein to sprint from her goal all the way past midfield to celebrate. But it was too little, too late with the way the Penn midfield was winning the possession war.

"I think this is one of the toughest games to get through because you want to be back in the final four so badly," Brower said.

For her part, Terriers coach Liz Robertshaw, who has spent time in the Ivy League herself, said she wasn't as surprised at Penn's recent resurgence as much as the players themselves were.

"I don't see them as [an outsider], and we never have," Robertshaw said. "We always expected good things of them."

Perceptions matter. They have a funny way of becoming reality.