PHILADELPHIA – The No. 12 University of Pennsylvania women's lacrosse team has had a week to re-gather after dropping a pair of Ivy League games last week at Princeton and Yale. The Quakers are back on the road on Saturday, hitting the home stretch of league play with Cornell.
 
GAME 12 – #12 PENN (8-3, 2-2 Ivy League) at CORNELL (7-5, 2-2)
Saturday, April 13, 2024 | Noon
Ithaca, N.Y. | Schoellkopf Field
Watch Live on ESPN+ ($) | Live Stats
 
The Series with Cornell
*The Quakers and Big Red are meeting for the 51st time in women's lacrosse, with Penn holding a 32-18 lead in a series that started in 1975.
 
*The two teams have split a pair of meetings in the post-pandemic world, Cornell winning 13-9 in Ithaca in 2022 and Penn returning the favor with a 15-12 victory last season in Philadelphia.
 
*In last year's win at Franklin Field, Niki Miles led the way with four goals and five points while Anna Brandt scored twice and Erika Chung dished out two assists to go with a goal for a three-point day. The Quakers had nine different goal scorers in the game.
 
*Penn's last win in Ithaca came in 2018, an 11-4 decision.
 
Penn in the National Stats (team)
*Ninth in CTs per game (11.55)
*10th in scoring defense (8.45)
*11th in DC percentage (.604)
*17th in shots per game (32.82)
 
Penn in the National Stats (players)
*Senior goalie Kelly Van Hoesen is sixth in goals-against average (8.34).
 
*Junior Erika Chung is 20th in assists per game (2.40).
 
Penn in the Ivy Stats (all games)
*Van Hoesen is second in goals-against average (8.31),
 
*Chung is third in assists per game (2.45).
 
*Senior Niki Miles is fourth in draw controls per game (5.50), fifth in points per game (4.17), fifth in shots per game (6.67), and sixth in goals per game (2.92).
 
*Junior Anna Brandt is seventh in shots per game (6.50), eighth in goals per game (2.75), and ninth in draw controls per game (3.67).
 
*In caused turnovers per game, senior Sophie Davis is second (1.58), seniors Aly Feeley and Izzy Rohr are tied for fourth (1.50), and senior Grace Fujinaga is sixth (1.42).
 
*Davis also is ninth in ground balls per game (1.92).
 
*Junior Keeley Block is ninth in shots per game (6.17).
 
Quaker Notemeal
*After losing a pair of Ivy League games last week, Penn dropped from seventh to 12th in the IWLCA poll and from fifth to 12th in the USA Lacrosse Magazine poll.
 
*Perhaps more importantly, though, when the NCAA's Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) came out on Monday Penn was still a robust seventh.
 
*Penn had won 11 Ivy League regular-season games in a row going back to the 2022 season, before falling 14-9 at Princeton last Wednesday. That included an undefeated 7-0 campaign last year when the Quakers won their 14th Ancient Eight title.
 
*The Red and Blue then defeated Harvard and Yale to win the Ivy League Tournament, earning the league's NCAA Championship automatic bid. In its 16th NCAA appearance, Penn beat UConn in the first round and gave eventual finalist Boston College all it could handle in the second round before falling, 9-7.
 
*Penn returns almost all 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 honors 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. (This does not include junior Keeley Block, who missed last season due to injury after earning honorable mention All-Ivy recognition as a freshman in 2022. So make it 11 All-Ivy players in the lineup.)
  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
 
*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.
 
*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 at Temple, a goal and an assist.
 
*Miles has picked up where she left off last year, leading Penn with 32 goals and 45 points. She had a goal Sunday at Yale, ending a multi-goal and multi-point streak of 25 games that dated back to last season (started March 11, 2023 at Jacksonville).
 
*Miles reached the 100-goal milestone for her career in Penn's win over Georgetown on March 12; she became the 14th player in program history to reach that milestone and the first since Zoe Belodeau in 2021.
 
*Currently, Miles has 113 career goals (8th all-time at Penn) and 163 career points (t-8th).
            UP NEXT (GOALS): Rachel Manson (2005-08), seventh, 116; Gabby Rosenzweig (2017-20), sixth, 121
            UP NEXT (POINTS): Tory Bensen (2011-15) eighth, 163; Emily Rogers-Healion (2014-18) seventh, 165
 
*Miles also leads the team with 56 draw controls and had just the fifth double-figure game in program history in that category on March 24 with 10 against Harvard. She is followed by Brandt (41) and Feeley (31).
 
*Brandt tied her career high with five goals against the Crimson (on five shots); coincidentally, she originally set the mark against Harvard, at Penn Park, in last year's Ivy League Tournament semifinal. In the process, the junior moved past 100 career points (currently at 112).
 
*Brandt then scored four times last Wednesday at Maryland, in the process becoming the program's 15th 100-goal scorer (she currently has 106 in 45 games).
 
*Chung tied her season/career highs when she dished out five assists last Sunday at Yale. She leads the Quakers with 24 assists.
 
*Block was Penn's second-leading scorer and honorable mention All-Ivy recognition as a freshman in 2022; she is back after missing all of last season due to injury. The junior has multiple points in eight games and multiple goals in five including three hat tricks.
 
*Freshman Catherine Berkery has 20 goals and hit for four points last Sunday in New Haven; she already has eight multi-point and five multi-goal games this season.
 
*Defensively, Feeley leads Penn with 17 caused turnovers followed by Davis (16), Fujinaga and Rohr (15 each), and junior Natasha Gorriaran (13).
 
*The Quakers are led by four captains this season: Miles, Rohr, Maria 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 262 of the program's 415 wins.
 
*As part of her 115-43 Ivy League regular season record at Penn, Corbett is 94-15 (.862) since the 2007 season. That includes 36 straight wins from 2006-11, tied for the longest win streak in league history with Harvard (1987-93).
 
*Of note, Corbett's 115 Ivy League wins are third in conference history—behind only Princeton's Chris Sailer (183 from 1987-2022) and Dartmouth's Amy Patton (118 from 1993-2016)—her 12 Ivy League titles are second all-time behind Sailer (16), and her seven outright titles are behind only Harvard's Carole Kleinfelder (9 from 1980-2003).
 
For the latest on Penn women's lacrosse, follow @PennWomensLax on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.