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The five seniors – Liz Mata, Alexa Hoover, Gina Guccione, Jasmine Li, and Rachel Huang – are captains, four-year starters, skillful scorers, record-breakers, defensive walls, and, above all, leaders. On Saturday, they will play Princeton in what will be their final game together.
Red and blue jersey, knee pads, and court sneakers are the usual attire for a Penn volleyball player. Yet, standing before me is outside hitter Raven Sulaimon, clad in a chicken suit.
What do the Cheetah Girls, grandmothers and Disney princesses have in common? Answer: They all took the field on Tuesday afternoon for Penn women's soccer's practice in preparation for the team's final game of the season against rival Princeton.
Until this season, Furrer had spent her entire Penn career — and her entire life — as an outside hitter, one of the players whose job it is to go up in the air, spike the ball with authority, and finish off as many points as possible with a devastating attack.
Now, everything has changed for the redheaded Texan: her position, her role, her stats, her spot on the court and even the color of her jersey.
For a number of former Penn student-athletes, however, the most difficult move of their lives often ends up being the most necessary one. And while starting their next chapters after leaving Penn varsity teams provides former Quakers with major fulfillments in their own right, the sports world’s unique thrills of competition, triumphs and camaraderie often prove difficult to replace.
Positive self-talk. Relaxation. These are skills that seem imperative to get through collegiate life, let alone life as a college athlete. This is exactly what all three men stressed: how important it is to translate these skills off the field, and how crucial it is for those not competing in Division I athletics to execute these mental skills as well.
Usually led by a high-octane attack that uses a potent offense to keep itself in games, the Quakers are scoring fewer goals this year while conceding far fewer.
Bokun, an Indiana native who has worked himself up from special teams contributor to starting tight end, has been sacrificing his body for years so that stars like senior wide receiver Justin Watson and senior running back Tre Solomon can grab the highlights.
After hearing of his admission to Penn in December of his senior year in high school, Karam immediately began to lose weight in order to be able to suit up for the Quakers. In the Collegiate Sprint Football League (CSFL), all players are required to weigh under 178 pounds in order to be eligible to play.
Wancowicz has been a rock for Penn men’s soccer since patriarch and coach Rudy Fuller welcomed him to the team. The senior captain has started nearly every game for which he has been healthy in his four years, providing much needed stability and consistency to the back four.
Led by senior midfielder Joe Swenson, the Red and Blue offense dismantled Yale to the tune of four goals. Swenson, proving his star power, recorded a hat trick and an assist, lending a foot in all four of the team’s tallies.
Penn women’s club soccer has achieved what any team dreams of: perfection. The Red and Blue are 8-0 in their regular season matches heading into the regional tournament later this month.
The team has cruised to a dominant 6-0 start in Colonial States College Hockey Conference play and boasts an overall record of 7-2. Their last game against Seton Hall University ended in a lopsided 9-1 Quaker victory.
Sailing mainly against schools with varsity teams, the Quakers have consistently found themselves near the top of the national rankings over the past several years. The women’s team is currently ranked 16th in the country, while the co-ed unit stands as the 25th best team nationally.
The Seattle native was invited to be one of 11 girls on the U24 mixed team, who will be traveling to Australia in early 2018 for the WFDF U24 Championship.
With both athletics practices and on-campus recruiting (OCR) presentations often being scheduled for the evening to accommodate course-schedules and traveling job-recruiters, many in-season athletes struggle to balance a commitment to their teams with a desire to secure corporate internships and jobs.
Penn women’s soccer senior Erica Higa only had one shot on Saturday, but that one shot was enough to earn her this week’s DP Sports' Player of the Week.
With the teams almost halfway through the season, Penn's top two rookies have had a significant hand in the success that both the men’s and women’s teams have achieved, helping to score points at the past three meets and contribute to the dominance of the program.
After a fourth-place finish at the Paul Short Invitational, Penn men's cross country walked away from Lehigh University ranked second in the Mid-Atlantic Region of the NCAA. With their No. 2 ranking, the Quakers have approached historic territory, matching the best ranking in program history.