No. 13 Penn women's lacrosse dominates Harvard, 17-9, in final regular season game

After clinching their 10th straight berth to the Ivy League Tournament last weekend, the Quakers finally know what seed they will be. 

In its final contest of the regular season, No. 13 Penn women's lacrosse clinched the No. 3 seed in the upcoming Ivy League Tournament after defeating Harvard, 17-9. The win marks another dominant performance against Harvard (6-9, 1-6 Ivy). Penn (11-4, 5-2) has now defeated Harvard in 19 straight matchups, losing its last game to the Crimson in 2000.

On the heels of a 21-7 thrashing of Columbia, Penn continued its hot stretch of play by scoring 17 goals on Saturday. Ten different players scored for the Red and Blue, including two goals from seven different players.

After a back and forth first 20 minutes of play, the two teams were tied at four. The Quakers then made a run, scoring five goals unanswered and only allowing one goal in the final 10 minutes of the first half.

The second half found more of the same. Penn scored six unanswered goals to start the half and did not surrender a goal for the first 20 minutes.

“[At halftime], we just talked about the basics and how to attack their zone correctly and what we needed to do in order to get some easy goals and find the openings in their zone,” junior attacker Gabby Rosenzweig said. “We talked a lot on defense about how to stop a lot of their cuts that they were getting as well.” 

The Quakers were able to exploit Harvard’s zone defense — a defense they struggled against a few weeks ago against Dartmouth — en route to the win. 

“I was pleased with the overall team effort today against the zone,” coach Karin Corbett said. “It was a real team effort. We had a lot of balanced scoring, and that’s really what you want. That’s always great, especially going into the Ivy League Tournament.”

Rosenzweig, who leads the team in points with 86 and assists with 54, continued her excellent play with two goals and five assists on the day. 

“A lot of [my success today] was because of my teammates,” Rosenzweig said. “They finished a lot of my passes, and that was really great to see. Our offense was moving really well, and that was opening up a lot of holes for me to see and feed, and they were finishing with great shots.”

On the defensive side, the Quakers held the Crimson below their season average of 10.93 goals per game. On the Crimson’s Senior Day, senior Keeley MacAfee scored four goals in her last game, finishing her final season with Harvard with 49 goals. MacAfee is just the sixth player in Harvard program history to record 200 career points.

“She’s a great player, and she’s had a great career at Harvard,” Corbett said. “She’s a really good athlete. She’s played well against us over her four years, so I’m kind of glad she’s graduating. She’s a really great finisher.”

Prior to the Quakers' two-game win streak, they fell in back-to-back games against Ivy League Tournament foes Dartmouth and Princeton by a combined total of six goals. 

“[This win] gave us a nice confidence boost heading into the Ivy League Tournament that we can really crush a zone and do really well against a zone attacking wise, and we can really play well on the defensive end as well,” Rosenzweig said. “It’s just going to give us a lot of confidence going into our practice this week and then the tournament.”

The Quakers will face Dartmouth next weekend in the first round of the Ivy League Tournament.