Jason Bodnar: Penn wins just keep on coming

Monday sure didn't seem like Monday in Weightman Hall. Or on Franklin Field. Or Rhodes Field. Or the Palestra.

People were smiling, laughing, radiating a very un-Monday-like sense of happiness.

"I came into work on Monday, and everybody had a bounce in their step," Penn Athletic Director Steve Bilsky said. "Everybody was talking about it."

It? Well, "it" was the best weekend for Penn sports teams in recent memory, if not ever.

There were blowouts -- football 43-7 over Holy Cross, sprint football 56-12 over Princeton.

There were shockers -- volleyball beating Princeton for the first time since 1993, field hockey winning its second-straight overtime game, men's soccer equaling its Ivy win total from the previous three years.

And there was the expected -- women's soccer beating Cornell.

Every single Penn team, except for those in tournaments, was undefeated last weekend.

And those tournament results -- both cross country squades in the Top 10 at a 39-team meet, women's golf posting its best score ever, men's golf seventh at the Temple Invitational, men's tennis fifth at ECACs -- were certainly nothing to scoff at.

Individually, all those results were something to celebrate. Collectively they had Bilsky and the rest of the Penn Athletic Department practically dancing.

"That's the fun part of this job," Bilsky said. "But you're not going to have a weekend like that often, when everybody won."

Still, so far this fall there have been plenty of weekends that have been close. There must be something in the water, or the cheesesteaks, or the water the people making the cheesesteaks drink, because Penn sports have been pretty darned good this fall.

Combined, the football, sprint football, volleyball, field hockey, men's soccer and women's soccer teams are 27-13-2.

And if you eliminate field hockey's 3-7 record from that field, that mark jumps to 24-6-2.

We wouldn't want to eliminate field hockey, however. The Quakers may be just 3-7, but two of those wins were in overtime against Ivy teams.

Penn's field hockey team won one Ancient Eight game in 1999 and none last year. Now the Quakers are 2-0 in the league.

"I haven't had a team like this in several years, where they're really playing together like this," Penn field hockey coach Val Cloud said.

It all started with a 2-1 overtime victory over Dartmouth on Sept. 29 -- Penn's first Ivy win in nearly two years.

Bilsky was there.

"It was really exciting," he said. "You could see the enthusiasm, them running on the field and jumping on top of one another."

Bilsky was also at the Penn-Dartmouth women's soccer game that weekend. That particular game, however, was a Quakers loss -- quite an anomaly for a Penn team this fall, especially in an Ivy League game.

Last year, Penn won or shared six Ivy titles, its highest total in 15 years. Currently, Quakers teams are 6-1 in Ancient Eight games, with four teams undefeated in the Ivies.

The only two non-undefeated-in-the-Ivies teams are sprint football and women's soccer.

Sprint football has an excuse, because there is no Ivy League for sprint football teams. Penn's wins, however, were against Cornell and Princeton.

As for women's soccer, well, Penn is 7-1-1 in the sport and is No. 6 in the mid-Atlantic rankings. Not exactly the sore thumb.

Then again, no Penn team is this fall.

Yes, it's still only mid-October. But look at the difference from 12 months ago.

Penn's overall winning percentage last year, as of Oct. 11, was .573. This year it's .683.

Penn's Ivy record last year, as of Oct. 11, was 3-8. This year it's 6-1.

And since most of the Quakers athletic contests take place on weekends, that kind of success almost makes Monday a pleasure.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.