F. Hockey hopes for closing upset

The Penn field hockey team has one last game today, but its season is all but over. The Quakers, who are winless in the Ivy League, will travel to Princeton today to face the Tigers, who clinched the Ivy League title in their win over Cornell on Wednesday. The matchup between Princeton and Penn is fitting in a certain sense, as it is the final blow in a series of disappointing games for Penn this season. While the Quakers (3-13, 0-6 Ivy League) insist that they are optimistic about their odds of upsetting Princeton (12-3, 6-0), the reality is that Penn has very little hope of defeating the Tigers. Princeton, who has gone undefeated in the Ivy League in addition to defeating nationally ranked teams like Penn State, is unlikely to drop their final game to the Red and Blue. "We're excited to play them at Princeton. We are going to go out and try to win," Penn junior co-captain Monique Horshaw said. "We're ready to be a spoiler for them. A loss for them would be good, and a win for us would be good." Unfortunately for the Quakers, the opportunity to win an Ivy League game seems to have passed them by. Penn's most promising opportunities for an Ivy win came in games against Harvard and Yale, both of which went into overtime. However, just as with every other overtime period the Quakers have played this season, they ended both games on the short end. Penn has been unlucky in eight such tries. With an overall record of 3-13, it is remarkable that Penn still appears relatively optimistic. Although they have been frustrated on the field, it seems that the Quakers are still ready to fight for their last game, despite the odds being overwhelmingly against them. "We're probably not as down in the dumps as we should be, I guess," Horshaw said. "We're still having a good time at practice and still trying to go hard." However, while Penn has retained a degree of optimism, there are signs that the season of losses has taken its toll. The Quakers' last two games, against Columbia and Brown, were lost by four goals and five goals, respectively. Those games marked the two largest deficits of the season for the Quakers and are possibly indicative of a team that has lost the confidence that it had at the beginning of the season. "Most of the season, most of our losses were good games. We hadn't lost badly until last weekend," junior Nikki Battiste said. "It's almost like we had a big streak of bad luck, but everyone has played hard and not given up." While bad luck may have been a factor, it is apparent that the Quakers' string of losses this season has involved other factors. Unfortunately, part of the problem for Penn seems to be identifying what those factors are. "Mentally, it's been draining losing so many in overtime and stuff," Battiste said. "Playing-wise, it has almost come to the point where we don't know what to do." For now, Penn can only look toward next season as the light at the end of the tunnel. However, Penn will have to ride that tunnel to Princeton tomorrow before this season's ordeal can finally come to its conclusion.

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