The dream season for the Quakers comes to a close. Today's game was not the worst effort that Penn could have put out -- but it was far from their best and certainly lacking for a semi-final matchup. However, most of the credit has to go to Northwestern: they were a well-oiled machine. They played aggressively but made very few mistakes.

In the end, one game should not sully what was a great season for these women.

4:46, 2nd Half: PENN, 2 Northwestern, 12

Things don't improve for the Quakers as Chrissy Muller picks up a yellow card. But Northwestern fouls Penn a few times and the Quakers score again, this time Becca Edwards, unassisted.

11:17, 2nd Half: PENN, 1 Northwestern, 12

An awful turnover by Szelest lets Hilary Bowen walk in for her second goal of the game.

16:06, 2nd Half: PENN, 1 Northwestern, 11

A glimmer of hope for Penn as Chrissy Muller scores. For the first time since the opening face-off, the Penn crowd can be heard as they let out a roar. But they are quickly silenced by Hannah Nielsen .

20:52, 2nd Half: PENN, 0 Northwestern, 10

Northwestern misses its free position chance but Kristen Kjellman buries the next shot she has. Karen Brower pulls Waxman in favor of Emily Szelest -- it seems to be about saving face for Waxman rather than about turning things around at this point.

23:34, 2nd Half: PENN, 0 Northwestern, 9

A free position goal gives Aly Josephs her fifth of the game.

Halftime: PENN, 0 Northwestern, 8

More good chances for Penn go begging.

Right now, the Wilcats' defense is setting the tone for the game. The Quakers are having trouble generating quality shots and holding on to the ball. And every time they turn it over, Northwestern is able to march down the field and score.

00:52, 1st Half: PENN, 0 Northwestern, 8

A foul by Northwestern's Christy Finch gives Penn two great chances yet to score. The Quakers come away from that sequence with three shots but no goals. When the Wildcats go back down the field, Waxman stumps them with two good saves. She's looking really fired-up. Unfortunately, Aly Josephs is too fast and too good today, as she scores her fourth.

9:35, 1st Half: PENN, 0 Northwestern, 7

With Penn's defense going right, Aly Josephs goes left and earns a quick hat trick.

10:35, 1st Half: PENN, 0 Northwestern, 6

Some signs of life by the Quakers, as they start to look desperate, fighting for ground balls and forcing turnovers. But the Wildcats turn that agressiveness against them, as Kristen Kjellman just flies down the middle of the field and fires a bullet past Waxman.

12:23, 1st Half: PENN, 0 Northwestern, 5

Another goal, this time by Hilary Bowen. Not much else to say here.

12:46, 1st Half: PENN, 0 Northwestern, 4

Meredith Frank makes a great interception of a Quakers' pass. Right now it feels that for every minute the Quakers have the ball, Northwestern has it for five. Star Wildcats midfielder Kristen Kjellman makes it 4-0 on a free position goal.

14:42, 1st Half: PENN, 0 Northwestern, 3

The Quakers have trouble finding holes in the Wildcats' defense. No surprise there, given that they're known for their tight, agressive defense. Again, the Wildcats set up patiently and don't force the issue. Sarah Waxman makes one great save, but when Northwestern gets the ball back, Aly Josephs finds a seam in the defense and buries her second of the game. Timeout for the Quakers, trying to stop this from quickly getting out of hand.

17:37, 1st Half: PENN, 0 Northwestern, 2

A great effort by Kaitlyn Lombardo to streak down the right side put Penn in great attacking position. Some rough defense by Northwestern wins it back for them, though, and they camp for minutes in Penn's zone. A wraparound by Meredith Frank makes it a two-goal lead.

25:33, 1st Half: PENN, 0 Northwestern, 1

It's a back and forth affair early on. The Quakers are showing their speed but are being too careless with their opportunities. A Penn turnover gives Northwestern great position in the attacking zone, and Aly Josephs buries a close one for NU.

Good afternoon everybody from Franklin Field. The first matchup today of the semifinals pits the surprising No. 4 Quakers (16-1) against the two-time defending champs, the No. 1 Northwestern Wildcats (16-1).

Maryland made a push on their last possession, but Penn used a triple-team and a key save from Waxman to put it away.

Stay tuned to dp.com for more coverage now and next week of Penn's trip to the lacrosse Final Four, right here at Franklin Field.

Good afternoon from The Buzz.

4:04: Penn 9, Maryland 7

Penn will win this game if it avoids stupid plays, but unfortunately the Quakers just had one, fouling Kelly Kasper right in front of the goal. She scored on the next play. It's a cat-and-mouse game right now; Penn has its offense spread out as far as humanely possible to eat up the clock.

9:43: Penn 9, Maryland 6

Maryland's Lauren Cohen fired a bullet past Waxman from 15 yards out, but that's ok -- that's the kind of shot Penn wants the Terps to take. And it hardly mattered, because freshman phenom and Ivy League ROY Ali DeLuca finally got on the board, shoving anything and everything out of her way to score unassisted. Penn's biggest enemy right now is the clock.

14:17: Penn 8, Maryland 5

Becca Edwards just took a pass from Muller three yards in front of goal and buried it. Burton has gone from invincible to helpless in 10 minutes. What a reversal for Penn.

15:00: Penn 7, Maryland 5

Chrissy Muller scored and Lehman scored another free-position goal from 10 yards out, and all of a sudden Penn has a two-goal lead! My, how the tables have turned. And only one of Penn's goals has been assisted so far. Not bad at all.

20:09: Marlyand 5, Penn 5

Interesting tidbit of the day: Penn hoops coach Glen Miller and assistants Chris Sparks and Mike Martin approach the entrance with a handful of recruits, only to be barred at the gate by guards claiming they didn't know who Miller's two partners-in-crime were. Still awaiting word on whether the coaches had to buy tickets to get in, but I'm sure the recruits were very impressed by that.

21:39: Marlyand 5, Penn 5

Tie game! Chrissy Muller took Burton by complete surprise and fired a line drive right past her helmet. Maybe the Quakers have a winning formula after all.

23:34: Marlyand 5, Penn 4

Neither team can hang onto the ball, and this game has quickly turned into a clinic on team defense. Luckily for Penn, a free-position goal from Ambrozy finally brings the deficit back to one.

Waxman got a serious scare too. She had the ball whacked out of her stick from behind and the Terps should have had an open-net goal -- but they blew it. Can't do that in the NCAA Tournament, but momentum is still with the visiting side.

Halftime: Marlyand 5, Penn 3

I believe the last time Penn got outscored in the second half was against Princeton several weeks ago, 5-6. But that time, Penn was already up 9-4 at the half. Maryland hasn't lost a game this year after leading at the break. Unfamiliar position for the Quakers, let's see how they respond.

1:18, First half: Marlyand 5, Penn 3

Penn needs to make a stand here. Against Boston University last week the Quakers gave the ball back with 17 seconds to go in the first half and watched as the Terriers streaked up the field and scored two seconds before halftime. That would be deadly right now.

3:00, First half: Marlyand 5, Penn 3

This is the most tightly officiated women's lacrosse game I've ever seen. Three offensive fouls in under 10 minutes? Crazy.

3:31, First half: Marlyand 5, Penn 3

Signs of life, despite six turnovers for the Quakers so far. Rachel Manson scored off a pretty feed and Melissa Lehman made her defender look silly in the open field. And Sarah Waxman, Penn's All-Ivy goalie, finally looks comfortable. She guessed wrong on some early Terps shots and almost got burned but looks much better now. The way Maryland is pushing the ball up, she's going to need to have a big game.

16:54, First half: Marlyand 3, Penn 1

Finally! Allison Ambrozy -- not a huge scorer -- finally created some space and buried a short-sided goal past Burton. Penn's going to have to find some other ways to score, though, if it wants to keep things close.

20:29, First half: Marlyand 3, Penn 0

All Terps in the early going, two isolation goals put Penn in an early hole. Player of the game so far is Terps goalie Allie Burton, who's done nothing but stuff the Quakers so far.

Clare Lochary of laxmagazine.com wrote a great sidebar the other day about the different coaching styles of the two teams, and the game is bearing it out so far. The Terps have the green light and they're taking the shots, especially in transition. This is as poorly as I've seen the Penn defense play this year.

One other thought: these refs must be taking their cues from the Suns-Spurs series. A yellow card and no fewer than six whistles so far, most of them on what I would call very light contact.

Good afternoon from Franklin Field. It's a beautiful day for women's lacrosse, and No. 4 Penn finally gets the ACC matchup it's been clamoring for. No. 5 Maryland -- underseeded in my opinion, just like Penn -- will present a darn stiff challenge. It's the tough offense vs. one of the nation's best defenses, so something's gotta give. Stay tuned for live updates.

What's that, Wheeling, there's only one of you? You really better hope I go the dressing route.

Anyway, time to listen up, men of Penn.

For mingling with your female counterparts, Smoke's is overrated, Mad4Mex too expensive and MarBar not worth your time.

But I can tell you what is worth your time: women's lacrosse games.

There was an announced crowd of 1,013 for the Lady Laxers last night, and usually I'm the first to challenge that number, but this time it seemed pretty accurate. It was loud and it was crowded.

Crowded with sorority sisters, that is. Aside from the parents and the occasional youth players in lacrosse gear, it seemed like "The Frank" was crawling with everybody from A Chi Omega sisters to the beauties of I Felta Thi.

And Rich Kahn, who was in top form as always. Good to hear that voice again.

On the field, it was a great night. A couple of nervous moments at the end, as Princeton stepped it up and a few calls went the Tigers' way. But for a team that hasn't really had many close calls this year, they came up big on defense and in goal when they had to.

And it was a game that could be the start of an incredible two weeks for the Penn programs with softball, baseball and both tennis teams in first place.

The Penn men’s lacrosse team looked asleep going down 3-1 in the first quarter, but then came roaring back to net five goals in the first 7:40 of the second quarter to take a 6-3 lead, eventually holding on for a 12-10 win over the Bears. Sophomore attacker Craig Andrzejewski scored two of his four goals in this stretch, adding one assist.

This was the third time in as many games in which Penn had a long lackadaisical stretch, but also a short, fantastic burst.

Against Dartmouth, the Red and Blue trailed 8-4 going into the final quarter, but scored five goals in the final 10 minutes, including two in the last two, for the victory. Hosting Princeton, the Quakers played a great first quarter – leading the nation’s No. 5 squad 2-0, but then allowed the next eight goals in the blowout. Now this past weekend Penn scored five goals in under seven minutes.

The results are also as eerily unspectacular, similar to the consistent inconsistency.

The 3-3 (6-5 overall) Quakers have lost to teams – Princeton, Cornell and Harvard – that are 6-2 Ivy (not including the wins over Penn) and beat teams – Yale, Dartmouth and Brown – that are 2-6. This may not seem too odd, but last year a stronger Penn team lost to a Harvard squad it probably should have beaten, but upended No. 2 Cornell, someone it had no business beating. This year’s team has seen some nice stretches and some poor ones, but none have resulted in any bad losses or quality wins.

However, two years ago the 2-11 men's lacrosse team did get walloped by an equal margin, 21-6, at the hands of Maryland. Other than that, Penn hasn’t allowed more than 16 goals in the last four years (or as far back as the record books go).

The thing is, Terps game was the season finale in 2005: this year’s team must rebound from the 20-goal shellacking. There are two approaches to turning around after a bad loss – either talking about it and using it as motivation, or just forgetting about it and coming out strong the next weekend.

While the Quakers want to put the loss behind them, they have taken the former route. The Red and Blue had a meeting on Monday to break down game film, saw what they did wrong and are now fired up to be the aggressor this time.

“I think it’s definitely motivating looking at [the box score] and seeing how bad we actually played in that game,” senior middie David Cornbrooks said. “We can take that and use it, and maybe do that to a team on Friday.”

While I didn't make the trip up to Cornell for the Ivy matchup, from reading recaps and taking a look at the boxscore it seems as if the Big Red just plain bullied the Quakers.

Cornell held Penn to only 14 shots on goal (half of what it got off), and out-muscled Penn for 14 more ground balls. As a result, the Big Red took nine penalties for a whopping 7:00 of power plays. Meanwhile, the Quakers sat in the box for 2:30, right on their season average.

They did score two goals while a man up, but that wasn't nearly enough, as the more physical Cornell squad coasted to a victory in the second half.

Clearly the negatives of taking penalties didn't come close to outweighing the positives. As a team which draws over a minute more in penalties than it commits, all Penn needs is for the NCAA to NHL-ise lacrosse, so that the Broad Street Bullies no longer rule the league.

Last year, the Quakers lacrosse team came in with a 6-0 (1-0 Ivy) mark, and lost to the Crimson. This year it was switched though – Harvard was 0-4 coming in, but managed to come away with a 7-6 win in overtime.

The Red and Blue are hoping that this trend continues, just with Cornell. Last year, the Quakers dumped No. 2 Cornell (6-0, 1-0) in a huge upset, and this Saturday face an undefeated Cornell squad with the exact same record as last season, and now boast the No. 1 overall mark in the InsideLacrosse.com poll.

It was hard for the Quakers to pinpoint a central area of the game as the key in the loss to Harvard, but time of possession may have been that silver bullet. The offense produced only six goals, but it’s difficult to score when the other team has the ball.

“Our offense played well, it’s just giving them a chance to get on a roll,” said senior middie Matt Kelleher. “It was really time of possession. … We were on defense the whole game and couldn’t get it out of our own end.”

While that stat was not directly kept, the time of possession is evidenced by Harvard’s 36 shots (to Penn’s 26) and +9 turnover margin (20-11).

After benching veteran goalie Greg Klossner, who was far too inconsistent, freshman Chris Casey has kept more balls out of the net each game since his first start in net.

All in overtime games, he allowed 11 goals in the 2OT loss to Maryland-Baltimore County (10 saves), allowed 9 goals in the 2OT win over Yale (eight saves) and by far the best of all, allowed seven goals (with 12 saves) in the overtime loss to the Crimson.

And he’ll most certainly have to keep his improvement streak going if Penn wants to beat the top-ranked Big Red.

The Quakers lost to Harvard yesterday in overtime, as the Crimson netted the golden goal about one minute in. Penn lost at Maryland Baltimore County 11-10 in 2OT, then beat Yale at home in the Ivy opener 10-9 in 2OT, and now drops its second league game, 7-6. The football team dropped all three of its overtime games, to Yale, Brown and then Princeton.

Up until the split against Yale and Harvard, the Quakers had only played two overtime games in their last 23, both against UMBC.

Lehigh went down 13-9 and it looked over. Despite Penn's efforts to run out the clock, the Mountain Hawks scored on what looked to be about half of their posessions inside seven minutes to nearly make the huge comeback. Because there's no shot clock the leading team can take huge chunks of time before getting hit and losing the ball, turning it over, or missing a shot. This is what made Lehigh's three goals in five minutes pretty impressive. I guess that's why Princeton's so good at lacrosse - it's all about holding the ball and making backdoor cuts.

In addition, three out of the four periods saw the final shot tickle the twine, all going in in the final two seconds. Penn scored this way in the first, and Lehigh in the next two quarters.

This game was all about runs. Up 4-3, Penn scored four straight goals in the next 3:30, but after a timout, Lehigh responded with four of its own to get it to within one.

This was highlighted by a nasty goal from the visitors' Stephen Marino. About 8 yards out, he faked a pass to a teammate behind the net and slinged a shot behind his back the found its way in.