May 22, 2008
by Paul Krome, Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff
Leave it to the Ivy League team from Philadelphia to resonate a blue-collar approach to women's lacrosse.
If Penn's players -- largely Pennsylvania and New Jersey athletes with a chip on their shoulder magnified by preseason labels as Cinderella -- can see their captains' mandate for accountability through to the national championship this weekend, they'll be the latest from the City of Brotherly Love feted on Broad Street.
"Last year was our first time in the final four -- we were really nervous," said midfielder Ali DeLuca, a sophomore from Hillsborough, N.J. "This year we're much more prepared. It's a different feeling."
DeLuca, a key cog in Penn's record-setting run to the 2007 Ivy League championship and NCAA semifinals, will lead the second-seeded Quakers' quest for validation in a national semifinal against unseeded Duke at 8:30 p.m. Friday at Minnegan Field. Top-seeded and three-time defending champion Northwestern battles fifth-seed Syracuse in tomorrow's first semifinal at 6 p.m.
Predictably miffed by preseason prognosticators that believed them a one-year wonder -- the league championship was their first in 25 years -- the Quakers turned the proverbial chip on their shoulder into a burden for others to bear in 2008, winning close (4-0 in one-goal games) and big (ending the top-ranked Wildcats' 26-game winning streak on April 27, 11-7) on their way to a 16-1 campaign and second straight Ivy title.
But a closer look reveals a group of Quakers that had been carrying that chip for a while.
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"We wanted kids who were self-motivated, who would work on things they needed to work on," said coach Karin Brower. "We had to convince kids that we can win here, that they could build that success here as opposed to going to a program that had already made it. We've got kids that are workers. They have fun in their work, and they have a chip on their shoulder."
Lehman, who hails from Oceanport, N.J., is a team captain alongside Allison Ambrozy, Rachel Manson and Sarah Waxman. Together they instituted practice policies for the team that now has the Quakers ready to cash that chip in for a shot at the national title.
"We instituted a `come-out-on-your own, hold-yourself-accountable' policy," said Lehman. "My first year or two, we struggled with our stick skills."
So the Penn captains ordered individual work, under the spotlight of the team.
"We posted a chart in the locker room of individual drills. You had to write on there when and how long you worked on the wall or in shooting drills," said Lehman. "You had to hold yourself accountable, because we knew we didn't have that much time with coaches (per Ivy League rules)."
Captains' practices in the offseason also included other skill work and defensive unit work.
"Two years ago we didn't make the tournament," Lehman added. "Last year we believed that the work we were doing in the offseason, on our own, made us a great team."
"Each year it seemed like we started to beat another Ivy team for the first time," said Brower, who took over the program in 2000. "Last year, it was our first wins over Princeton and Dartmouth. As a staff, we felt we had to get them to believe we were getting there."
Brower was able to attract the type of players she needed to build Penn into a contender right from the Quakers' backyard.
"We didn't have the best stick skills or shooting skills. Coach Brower recruits athletes. She looks at heart and hustle more than skills," said DeLuca, one of 16 natives of Pennsylvania or New Jersey on the roster. "The athletes that will get the ground balls -- she'll mold them into lacrosse players."
The approach suited DeLuca just fine.
"We say, `Only the strong survive in Jersey.' We're gritty," she said. "A lot of us from Jersey and PA -- we grew up playing basketball and soccer, and have been able to transition those skills to lacrosse."
"We wanted to bring Penn up to that traditional level of excellence," said Brower. "That we're doing it with a bulk of Pennsylvania and New Jersey kids, I'm excited about that."
But before the Quakers assume a perch atop women's lacrosse, they'll have to get past an equally motivated Duke team that has lost three straight national semifinal games. Losers of five of seven midway through the season, the Blue Devils righted their ship and won their first two tournament games on the road to stand at the cusp, again.
For one team come Saturday, being blue will never have felt so good.
