May 25, 2007
by Clare Lochary, Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff
PHILADELPHIA - Cinderella lost her glass slipper sprinting towards her pumpkin-turned-coach, trying to beat her midnight curfew.
Penn's Kaitlyn Lombardo lost her turf shoe chasing down Northwestern's Aly Josephs in the final minute of the first half of the Penn-Northwestern semifinal game. Josephs blew by her and scored to put the Wildcats up 8-0, as the Quakers' fairy tale season came to an unhappy ending with a 12-2 loss in an NCAA semifinal on their home field.
The hard reality of Northwestern's outsize talent doomed Penn's dreams of a title. It was the first time a team was shut in a half in the NCAA tournament since 1991, and the first shutout first half since 1984.
Kristen Kjellman scored three goals for the Wildcats, increasing her NCAA tournament career total to 38, an all-time record. Penn set a less impressive all-time tournament record by failing to score until Chrissy Muller beat Morgan Lathrop on the crease with 16:29 remaining in the second half.
Pre-game speculation lavished praise on Penn's grinding defense (6.29 goals allowed per game), since a slow-down game seemed like the best way to disrupt Northwestern's offense. But Northwestern is a two-headed monster, with both the top-ranked offense and the top-ranked defense in the country. Lathrop, who finished with seven saves, has the best save percentage (.586) and the lowest goals against average (5.74). Numbers like that get lost in such a high-scoring offense, but while scoring 12 on the Quakers is laudable, holding them to just two is astonishing.
"We have a pretty veteran defense," said Wildcats head coach Kelly Amonte-Hiller, who heaped praise on Lathrop and defenders Lindsay Finocchiaro and Anne Elliott. "You could hear them communicating from all the way down there on the field, and I think that was the difference maker - we just had so much leadership and everyone was so aggressive."
Poor shot selection doomed the Quakers. The key stats were startlingly even for such a lopsided game. Penn had the same number of ground balls (15) and draw controls (eight) as Northwestern, and only one fewer shot (20) and one more turnover (17). They struggled to put the ball on goal, while the Wildcats reeled off 10 unassisted tallies.
In the end, the Quakers had to console themselves with an Ivy League title - their first in over two decades - and a semifinal debut. No small prizes, but not exactly what they had in mind.
"We've come a long, long way," said Quakers coach Karin Brower. "It's a dream come true for us to be in the final four."
Mullen said her coach urged them not to think about the Northwestern loss, but about the season's 16 wins, and the future wins that this breakout team had made possible for Penn's program.
"Karin said 'Don't think about this game today; think about everything we've done,'" said the senior captain, with a certainty that contrasted some post-game tears.
You could tell she was proud. But you could also tell she was devastated that she and her teammates weren't able to slay the dragon. It's not how fairy tales are supposed to end.
