PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania women's lacrosse team opens Ivy League play on Saturday, hosting Columbia at Franklin Field. This is already the 13th-ranked Quakers' third home game of the young season as they begin defense of their 2023 league championship.
 
GAME 4 – #13 PENN (3-0, 0-0 Ivy League) vs. COLUMBIA (1-1, 0-0)
Saturday, March 2, 2024 | 1 p.m.
Philadelphia | Franklin Field
Watch Live on ESPN+ ($) | Live Stats
 
The Series with Columbia
*The Quakers and Lions are meeting for the 26th time in a series that dates back to 1997, and Penn is unbeaten having won all 25 previous matchups.
 
*The two meetings in a post-pandemic world have been dominated by Penn, the Quakers winning 17-7 last year in New York City and 19-6 the last time they met here in Philly, in 2022.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*Penn moved up one spot in the IWLCA poll after defeating then-No. 12 Johns Hopkins last Saturday at Franklin Field, 11-10. The Quakers also are 13th in the Inside Lacrosse and USA Lacrosse Magazine polls this week.
 
*Penn then got a win over Temple on Wednesday, 11-6, in a renewal of a city rivalry that had been dormant since 2010. In fact, 11 appears to be the magic number as that has been the Quakers' goal total in all three games so far this season.
 
*Penn has won nine Ivy League games in a row going back to the 2022 season, including an undefeated 7-0 campaign last year when they won their 14th Ancient Eight title.
 
*The Quakers then defeated Harvard and Yale to win the Ivy League Tournament, earning the league's NCAA Championship bid. In its 16th NCAA appearance, Penn beat UConn in the first round and gave eventual finalist Boston College—currently the top-ranked team in the country—all it could handle in the second round before falling, 9-7.
 
*Not surprisingly, Penn was a unanimous pick to repeat as conference champion this season, scooping up all 16 first-place votes for 128 points in the Ivy League's preseason media poll that was announced on February 13.
 
*Penn returns almost all of the key components from last year's team including the reigning Ivy League Attacker of the Year (senior Niki Miles), Midfielder of the Year (junior Anna Brandt), and Defender of the Year (senior Izzy Rohr). The trio has garnered preseason All-America honors from Inside Lacrosse and US Lacrosse, and Miles and Rohr were named to the Tewaaraton Award's preseason watch list.
 
*The trio made history last year, as it marked the first time players from the same program won all three major positional awards since the Ivy League began awarding them in 2013. (Prior to that, the Ivy League did a Player of the Year and a Rookie of the Year.)
 
*Penn had 10 women earn All-Ivy last year; all of them are back this season.
  FIRST TEAM: Brandt (unanimous), Miles (unanimous), Rohr (unanimous)
  SECOND TEAM: Erika Chung, Kaitlyn Cumiskey, Grace Fujinaga, Maria Themelis, Kelly Van Hoesen
  HONORABLE MENTION: Aly Feeley, Natasha Gorriaran
 
*On top of the returning group, the Quakers secured two transfers for this season: Grace Turner (Stanford) and Carli Fleisher (Northwestern). Fleisher—named the 2022 National High School Player of the Year by USA Lacrosse Magazine—had her first two collegiate points Wednesday at Temple, a goal and an assist.
 
*Miles has picked up where she left off last year, leading Penn with nine goals and 13 points. She also has 17 draw controls, more than double any of her teammates. (Brandt is second on the team with eight.)
 
*Miles has also shown her chops defensively, tying for the team lead in caused turnovers (4) with Feeley and Gorriaran through three games. Brandt, Rohr, and senior Sophie Davis have three each.
 
*Despite missing Wednesday's game against Temple, Chung leads the Quakers with seven assists, dishing out four in the season opener against Drexel and three (to go with two goals) last weekend vs. Hopkins.
 
*Junior Keeley Block was Penn's second-leading scorer and an honorable mention All-Ivy honoree as a freshman in 2022 but missed all of last season due to injury. She appears to be rounding back into form—after posting three points across the first two games this season, she had a hat trick on Wednesday at Temple. So let's go ahead and make that 11 All-Ivy players in the lineup.
 
*Freshman Catherine Berkery has seven goals already this season after scoring four times last week against the Blue Jays and two more times on Wednesday against Temple.
 
*At the other end, Van Hoesen is the reigning Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week after coming up with eight saves against the Hop. She followed that up with nine stops Wednesday at Temple.
 
*Berkery is one of eight freshmen who have joined the Red and Blue roster this season, hailing from six different states.
 
*The Quakers will be led by four captains this season: Miles, Rohr, Themelis, and Morgan Smith.
 
*Head coach Karin Corbett is in her 25th season at the helm. The coach for 12 of Penn's 14 Ivy titles and a two-time Ivy League Coach of the Year—the honor has only been given since 2015—she has been head coach for 257 of the program's 410 wins.
 
For the latest on Penn women's lacrosse, follow @PennWomensLax on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.