With nothing to lose, the women's lacrosse team (5-8, 2-4 Ivy League) went into its game against undefeated Penn (12-1, 7-0) with a certain fervor, determined to upset the likely Ivy champions.
But the Bears fell short against the Quakers in Philadelphia on Saturday, falling 12-5 to give No. 6 Penn the outright championship.
For the first 15 minutes of the game, both teams traded goals, starting with the Quakers just a little more than a minute into play. The Bears' response came five minutes later with a goal off a free-position shot from Kiki Manners '10. Manners also contributed defensively, causing three turnovers in the game.
Penn responded with 17:59 left in the first half, but Krystina DeLuca '09 countered 30 seconds later to tie the game at two. Not to be outdone, Deluca's younger sister, Ali DeLuca, put one in for Penn. Kara Kelly '10, however, evened out the score at three with an unassisted goal.
"We're a good matchup with Penn," Kelly said. "Our style of play is similar and the beginning of the game really showed that."
Manners added that the Quakers haven't seen many strong defensive teams that play with high pressure like the Bears.
"We knew if we pressured them a lot, we could make them make mistakes and get turnovers," she said.
But after a Penn timeout, a burst of energy sent the Quakers on a 5-0 run, putting them ahead 8-3 at the half.
"Their midfield trap was really aggressive after the timeout," Kelly said. "Our defense played awesome, but we had trouble getting the ball past midfield because they were trapping us so much."
Manners said the heat also affected the team. "We got a little sloppy and weren't taking care of the ball," she said.
After halftime, Brown came into the game with the same mentality it had during the first half: with nothing to lose and a "we can beat them" attitude, as Manners put it.
Bruno started off the scoring 4:24 into the half with DeLuca's second goal of the game, bringing the Bears within four.
"We came out strong in the second half," Kelly said. "We discussed that we really just needed to reverse the ball to get around the trap. It worked well at the beginning."
But Penn's Giulia Giordano scored back-to-back goals and put the Quakers ahead 10-4 with 18:43 left in the game. Lauren Vitkus '09, Brown's leading scorer, countered with her first goal to give the Bears another boost with 14:16 to go.
But that was all the Bears would have to offer. Penn scored twice more in the remaining 13 minutes of play, putting the final score at 12-5. The Quakers' last goal came with just three seconds remaining.
The Bears will return to the field on Tuesday when they host Manhattan at 7 p.m. The team has only three games left, all at home.
"We're definitely pretty pumped for the last three games," Kelly said. "We would love to get some big wins for (the seniors) to end their careers."
