Towson, MD. 5/13/2016 – The University of Pennsylvania women’s lacrosse shook off the disappointing loss to Cornell in the Ivy League Championship game winning their first round NCAA Tournament game in Towson, Maryland in dominating fashion 17 – 7 over the Seawolves of Wagner. Penn needed a bounce-back effort and got one.
“It was a tough loss and something we will always remember,” said Penn Coach Karin Brower Corbett. “What we want to do is learn from the mistakes that we made especially on defense. We worked on how to do better in the tournament, and we needed to be better in the NCAA.”
“We were going to focus on Wager, and that’s what we did,” said Penn attacker Nina Corcoran.
They did.
The Quakers got big performances from their leading players. Corcoran added to her record breaking season by scoring three goals and adding four assists. The senior extended a league and school record with 56 assists this season, which lead the country going into the game. Her 82 points established a Penn and Ivy League record this season, and set an Ivy League career-mark in assists with 125. Corcoran now has 201 career-points, 4th most by a player for the Quakers.
The key to the game was scoring balance for the Quakers as Caroline Dickinson and Alex Condon added four goals and an assists each. Iris Williamson recorded three goals and Caroline Cummings found the back of the net twice. Spreading the scoring is important for the Red and Blue.
“It’s huge,” said Condon. “It’s hard for a team when four, five, six girls are scoring on attack. It makes it hard on the defenders to stop that. And it makes our attack dangerous.”
Penn had an 8 – 5 lead at intermission. In the second half the Quakers got the first three goals to establish themselves in getting an 11 – 6 lead. Corcoran started the run by scoring a breakaway goal.
“We needed to extend the lead, but we really needed to work their defense,” said Brower Corbett. “We needed to attack them and get them moving. We started that in the second half and that opened the middle for us.”
Wagner closed to within 11 – 7 at the 14:25 mark when Kimmy Tumolo scored her second goal of the game. Penn closed the game with six consecutive goals.
The key now is to advance. Seventh seeded Penn no longer looks back, only forward. The Red and Blue will return to Towson on Sunday to play a second round game against the Towson – Old Dominion winner. Who, does not matter to Penn, they just want to keep the season going.
“For this team stringing together some defensive games is going to be important for us,” Brower Corbett said. “We need to build the consistency on defense. We have to do that game after game after game in the NCAA Tournament. You can’t have one good game and one down game.”
Written By: Glenn Papazian
Contact: Glenn@PhillyCollegeSports.com
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