PHILADELPHIA – The No. 7 University of Pennsylvania women's lacrosse team has little time to lick their wounds following Wednesday's stunning loss at Ivy rival Princeton. The Quakers are right back at it on Sunday, traveling to New Haven for a meeting with No. 16 Yale at Reese Stadium. Sunday's big Ivy League matchup features the defending champion Quakers against the only team still unbeaten in league play at this point in the Bulldogs.
 
Perhaps befitting of the stakes, Sunday's game will air live nationally on ESPNU.
 
GAME 11 – #7 PENN (8-2, 2-1 Ivy League) at #16 YALE (9-1, 3-0)
Sunday, April 7, 2024 | 4 p.m.
New Haven, Conn. | Reese Stadium
Watch Live on ESPNU ($) | Live Stats
 
The Series with Yale
*The Quakers and Bulldogs are meeting for the 48th time in women's lacrosse, with Penn holding a 27-19-1 lead in a series that started in 1977.
 
*Penn has dominated this series in recent years, winning 18 of the last 19 meetings dating back to the 2005 season. Yale's lone win came in 2022, an 11-10 decision the last time these teams met in New Haven.
 
*Penn swept a pair of games from the Bulldogs last season in Philadelphia, winning 16-6 during the regular season on Franklin Field and then besting Yale 15-14 in overtime in the Ivy League Tournament final played on Penn Park.
 
Penn in the National Stats (team)
As of Monday, April 1…
*Third in scoring defense (7.00 goals allowed per game)
*Sixth in caused turnovers per game (11.56)
*Seventh in draw control percentage (.623)
*11th in shots per game (33.44)
*12th in scoring margin (+6.00)
*14th in clear percentage (.921)
*16th in shots on goal per game (24.00)
 
Penn in the National Stats (players)
*Senior goalie Kelly Van Hoesen is second in goals-against average (6.85) and 30th in save percentage (.460).
 
*Junior Erika Chung is 20th in assists per game (2.38).
 
Penn in the Ivy Stats (all games)
*Senior Niki Miles is fourth in draw controls per game (5.22), fourth in goals per game (3.22), fourth in shots per game (6.89), and fifth in points per game (4.56).
 
*Chung is third in assists per game (2.38).
 
*Junior Keeley Block is fifth in shots per game (6.56) while classmate Anna Brandt is sixth (6.22).
 
*Seniors Sophie Davis, Aly Feeley and Izzy Rohr are tied for first in caused turnovers per game (1.67) while classmate Grace Fujinaga is tied for sixth (1.56); Davis also is t-5th in ground balls per game (2.00).
 
*Van Hoesen leads the league in GAA (6.85) and is third in save percentage (.460).
 
Some Defensive Notes
*In addition to being third nationally in GAA, Penn has held its opponent scoreless for at least one 15-minute span in all but two games so far this season...
  Drexel (1): 15:35
  Johns Hopkins (1): 30:41
  Temple (2): 16:05 and 15:21
  Columbia (1): 20:10
  W&M (1): 24:13
  Georgetown (1): 29:15
  Michigan (1): 15:27
  Harvard (1): 17:59
 Maryland (0): shutout streaks of 12:44, 12:31, and 11:09
 
*Penn has four shutout quarters so far this season: the second quarter against the Hop, the second and fourth quarters against Columbia, and the third quarter against Georgetown.
 
*Last Wednesday, Penn held then-No. 1 Maryland to nine goals; the Terps entered the contest averaging 13.0 goals per game.
 
*On March 24, Penn held Harvard to eight goals; the Crimson entered the contest averaging 18.8 goals per game.
 
*On March 16, against current No. 2 Michigan—a matchup of the top two defensive units in the country by GAA at the time—the Quakers held the Wolverines to six goals, exactly half their average heading into the contest (12.0 gpg).
 
Quaker Notemeal
*Penn moved all the way up to seventh in this week's IWLCA poll and is fifth in the USA Lacrosse Magazine national poll.
 
*Perhaps more importantly, when the NCAA's Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) came out on Monday Penn was second behind only Maryland.
 
*Penn had won 11 Ivy League regular-season games in a row going back to the 2022 season, before falling 14-9 at Princeton on Wednesday night. That includes 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 31 goals and 44 points. She has multiple points in all ten games this season and has a multi-goal and multi-point streak of 25 games dating 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 112 career goals (t-8th all-time at Penn) and 162 career points (9th).
            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 54 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 (31) and Feeley (26).
 
*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 107).
 
*Brandt then scored four times last Wednesday at Maryland, in the process becoming the program's 15th 100-goal scorer (she currently has 104 in 44 games).
 
*After going without an assist against Georgetown and Michigan, Chung was back to her feeding frenzy with three helpers against Harvard and one at Maryland. She leads the Quakers with 19 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 seven games and multiple goals in five including three hat tricks.
 
*Freshman Catherine Berkery has 17 goals and hit for four points (3g/1a) in the Harvard win; she already has eight multi-point and five multi-goal games this season.
 
*Defensively, junior Natasha Gorriaran joins the senior group of Davis, Feeley, Fujinaga and Rohr. She has 12 caused turnovers this season and scored her first goal of 2023 last Wednesday at Maryland.
 
*The Quakers will be 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.
 
For the latest on Penn women's lacrosse, follow @PennWomensLax on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.