With Penn’s women’s lacrosse and softball teams both playing one game at home for their respective Ivy League championships – just an hour apart – I went to campus to watch both games and chronicle the experience. It turned out to be a very good day for the Quakers. Here’s what transpired:

12:00: “I’m going to be doing a lot of banging,” a father of one of the Penn players informs me as the lacrosse game begins. “You might want to move up a row.” I keep my seat and the Franklin Field bench indeed begins to shake beneath me. I don’t mind. Lacrosse fever, baby!

12:02: People are still settling in when Penn scores its first goal of the game – the 16^th of the year from Maddie Poplawski.

12:06: Lucy Ferguson makes the first of her eight saves on the day. “She’s amazing,” someone in the crowd says of the Penn goalie that would soon earn quite the amazing honor.

12:07: Ferguson can’t save a shot from Dartmouth star Hana Bowers, who nets her 46^th goal of the season to tie the game at 1-1. It would be the last time the game is tied and the last time the Big Green would score that half.

Dartmouth was no match for Penn goalie Lucy Ferguson (Penn Athletics)

12:18: Two straight free-position goals – from Caroline Bunting and Courtney Tomchik – puts Penn up 3-1 as the crowd goes wild. The Penn fan that leads the cheers with a bullhorn after every goal gets a friendly suggestion to take a sip of water to preserve his voice. He grabs his 24-once Wawa coffee and takes a sip of that. I guess that works, too.

12:30: After a couple of more big saves from Ferguson, Penn goes up 4-1 on the 21^st goal of the season from Iris Williamson.

12:43: Penn completes a dominant first half with a Bunting goal with just 11 seconds remaining. It’s 5-1 at the halftime break but the Quakers know they can’t rest easy. In last year’s Ivy championship, they held a 3-1 lead at halftime before watching Dartmouth celebrate on their own field.

Penn’s Caroline Bunting shook free of Dartmouth defenders all day (Penn Athletics)

12:59: Penn picks up right where it left off, opening up a 6-1 lead early in the second half on another Poplawski goal.

1:02: Around the same time Dartmouth slices a little bit into the lead to make it 6-2, the Penn-Dartmouth softball championship begins over at Penn Park. I start following that game on Twitter.

1:07: Penn calls a timeout after Bowers scores to make it 6-3. The people dressed in green are starting to make a little more noise.

1:09: Over the loudspeaker, it’s announced that Yale beat Princeton in the Ivy League men’s lacrosse championship but there aren’t any cheers. Come on, Penn fans – where’s the Princeton hate?

1:11: After Penn goes up 7-3, I get a high-five from the fan with the bullhorn, who I find out is defender Meg Markham’s dad, John. I asked how he got the role of head cheerleader. “I’m loud and they gave me this,” he said, pointing to the bullhorn. Makes sense.

John Markham is the man with the bullhorn for women’s lacrosse games

1:16: Bunting gets her hat trick to put Penn up 8-3 with a little under 20 minutes remaining. Things are looking good at Franklin Field but not as good at Penn Park, where Dartmouth opened the scoring with a run in the top of the first.

1:22: Dartmouth is going to have nightmares about Bunting, who scores her fourth of the game to extend Penn’s commanding lead to 9-3.

1:30: Dartmouth is making a little noise on both fields, scoring two straight goals to shave Penn’s lead to 9-5 while increasing its advantage at Penn Park to 2-0 through one-and-a-half innings.

1:35: The lacrosse game is starting to get pretty physical with an increasingly desperate Dartmouth team committing three straight penalties. But Penn makes the Big Green pay when Meredith Cain burying a free-position goal following one of them. Meanwhile at Penn Park, the Quakers slice Dartmouth’s lead in half on a Georgia Guttadauro RBI single in the second inning.

1:45: Dartmouth again scores two straight goals. But with Penn leading 10-7 and just five minutes left, the Big Green are running out of time.

1:48: Bunting forces a key turnover and Ferguson makes a big save as the Quakers begin to clamp down to protect their lead and run down the clock.

1:53: With fans counting down the final seconds, the final whistle blows and Penn celebrates its 10-7 win in the middle of the field. The win assures the Quakers a spot in the NCAA tournament for a whopping seventh straight year. Later, they’ll find out they draw Virginia in the first round Friday.

1:55: As is their custom, the Penn players sing “The Red and the Blue” in front of their fans. The Dartmouth players quickly try to scamper out of the stadium but reluctantly stop halfway down the track for the trophy ceremony.

After doing some celebrating, the Penn players then did some singing

2:00: The all-tournament team is named with Bunting, Cain, Markham and Poplawski all earning a spot and Ferguson being named most outstanding player. Chants of “Lucy” can be heard all across Franklin Field, right before all of the players go to receive their championship trophy.

Everyone wants to touch the the championship trophy

2:04: With one championship down and one to go, I begin the long, arduous journey from Franklin Field to Penn Park to catch the end of the softball game.

2:08: Just as I’m completing the arduous journey, I see a ball fly over the fence and notice that Penn is now leading 3-2. The fourth-inning solo home run, I find out, was belted by Kayla Dahlerbruch. And it came after Penn tied the game on a Dartmouth error.

2:20: Penn clings to its 3-2 lead after ace Alexis Borden wiggles out of a jam in the top of the fifth, getting a strikeout to end the inning.

2:38: Still leading 3-2, Penn escapes another big jam, thanks to a clutch play to catch the lead runner at third on a sac bunt with runners on first and second and nobody out. Some Penn fans are shaking bottles filled with coins to celebrate. Is this a softball thing?

Is there a better place to watch a game? That skyline never gets old.

2:46: On her next at bat following the home run, Dahlerbruch gets hit in the head with a foul tip but shakes it off with a smile on her face. Penn still can’t get any more runs though as the game shifts to the seventh – and final – inning.

2:51: Looking for her second win in as many days, Borden retires the first batter of the inning on a lineout. Two more outs until Penn’s first Ivy League softball championship since 1981. Fans are standing and cheering every strike.

2:53: Strikeout. One out until the title. “Don’t say anything,” one fan warns. “It’s not over,” another one screams. Gotta love baseball/softball superstition.

2:55: A slow grounder to second … and it’s over! About an hour after one Ivy League championship, Penn wins another. You can watch the final out and some great fan reactions below.

2:57: Head coach Leslie King gets the Gatorade shower – only it wasn’t Gatorade. “Thankfully, it was water,” she’d say later, her shirt almost completely dry. “Last year it was blue Gatorade.”

3:05: Standing in a row, the Penn players pass the trophy down the line. One fan helpfully calls out, “Don’t drop it.”

For the first time since 1981, the word “Pennsylvania” will be inscribed on this trophy

3:06: I see Penn athletic director Steve Bilsky watching the celebration and ask him if Penn has ever won two Ivy League championships at home in the same day before. Off the top of his head, he thinks it might be the first. It’s later revealed that this marks the first time two Penn women’s teams earned NCAA tournament bids in the same day.

3:09: The softball team sings the second “Red and the Blue” of the day. The song definitely sounds better after a win.

Heeding the words in the dugout

3:17: With players still smiling and taking pictures with their friends and family, I talk to Dahlerbruch about her game-winning home run. She said her dad has the ball. She’s going to keep it.

3:25: I talk to King about capturing her first title at Penn. Like all good coaches, she credited her senior class but admitted she was nervous during the final two innings as she was “counting down the outs.” As for the upcoming NCAA tournament, King said, “We’re going to go to some beautiful stadium somewhere and play some high-quality team and we’re looking forward to the challenge and the experience. We’re really going to enjoy the ride.”

3:30: I leave the softball stadium. All of the players and parents are still on the field, not wanting the moment to end.

The team that broke the 32-year title drought.

This is getting to be a yearly tradition.

Last year at this time, Penn hosted the Ivy League women’s lacrosse tournament, the track and field Heptagonal Championships, and a one-game playoff for the softball division title.

This weekend should be just as fun.

For the fourth straight year, Penn will host the Ivy League women’s lacrosse tournament with Princeton playing Dartmouth on Friday at 4 p.m. and the Quakers, led by recently named Ivy League Midfielder of the Year Shannon Mangini, facing Cornell at 7 p.m. at Franklin Field. Both of those games are semifinal contests.

The next day, Penn hosts the Ivy League softball championship series for the first time ever, as the Quakers, who won the Ivy South Division with a 16-4 record, take on North Division champ Dartmouth in a Saturday doubleheader at Penn Park starting at 1 p.m.

Since it’s a best-of-three series, if the two teams split Saturday, they’d play again on Sunday at 1 p.m. at Penn Park in a win-or-go-home battle for the league title – and automatic berth to the NCAA tournament.

Meanwhile, if the Penn women’s lacrosse game wins its semifinal game on Friday, it would also play in a championship game on Sunday – at noon.

That means that on Sunday, you might be able to watch Penn win a women’s lacrosse Ivy championship at around 2 p.m., leave Franklin Field, make the very short walk to Penn Park and see the softball team win a league title possibly within the next hour or so.

What do you think, Quakers? Two championships in one afternoon?

On Sunday, Penn’s Director of Athletics, Steve Bilsky W’71, will be inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and Museum. It’s a big honor for Bilsky, who was a standout point guard for Penn, where he captained the famous 1970-71 team to a perfect regular season, and has been the athletic director at his alma mater for the last 19 years. Leading up to Sunday’s induction ceremony at the Suffolk Y JCC in Commack, N.Y. (near where Bilsky grew up), I caught up with the Penn AD to discuss the honor and the state of Penn athletics under his watch.

What does it mean for you to get inducted into the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame?

It’s a great honor. Any time you’re selected to a Hall of Fame, obviously it’s a lot of pride, you’re humbled and so forth. And then you look at all the people that have previously been inducted and it’s not just a who’s who of great Jewish athletes and media types, but for me personally it represents household names growing up: Sandy Koufax, Dolph Schayes, Howard Cosell, Red Auerbach, who I got to know when I was at George Washington. To think I’m going to be enshrined into something that includes them, it just makes you real humble.

How does this honor compare to some other Hall of Fames you’ve been inducted into – like the Big 5 and Penn Athletics?

Well, any time there’s a plural attached to it, it tells you you’re getting a little older. They’re each so unique. If you look at the Penn Hall of Fame, it’s a century-plus of great athletes who played here at Penn. If you think of the Big 5, it’s such a unique culture; there’s nothing like it anywhere in the country and to be enshrined into something like that makes that special. You don’t really compare them. You’re just flattered and honored that you would be selected for both.

What are you most proud of in your past 19 years as Penn’s athletic director?

It goes back to what I said when I was hired. You really have to concentrate on some major themes because at a place like Penn, it’s so vast and you can get drawn in so many directions that you could find yourself at the end saying, ‘I really didn’t accomplish anything.’ So when I started, I indicated things like a major overall upgrade of the facilities was the number one priority – because that happens cyclically. You have great old buildings like the Palestra and Franklin Field but if you don’t do anything with them every 20, 30 years they become relics rather than functional facilities. We also settled a Title IX complaint that was brought in before I was hired, which has really led to some great growth of our women’s teams. So gender equity was important. And then we really tried to create a culture of leadership in hiring good coaches and maintaining good coaches. And that’s all been culminated through a large degree by the success of our campaigns. The first athletic campaign that’s ever existed at Penn we raised over $120 million, which is a tremendous amount of money. That not only upgrades our facilities but it puts us in really a very healthy financial position going forward. So I would say those four things.

What has the feedback been so far for some of the new projects like Weiss Pavilion, Penn Park and Shoemaker Green?

They’ve been phenomenal. They’ve been phenomenal from the coaches, from the athletes, from recruits, from people who come here who remember this part of campus looking the way it once did and now all of a sudden they come back and they say, ‘Wow.’ It’s been really even beyond what are hopes would be. And you also include the Pottruck Center up on 38^th and Walnut. People now tend to forget that. We didn’t have any fitness facility on campus and that also is an award-winning, state-of-the art, top-of-the-line place. It’s not just going to help our athletic programs, which is obvious. It really was as important that this part of the campus was developed the way it turned out to be.

The new tennis courts at Penn Park are one of the many things that has Bilsky excited.

What’s the next big project you’re excited about?

Well, you’re always thinking about things. I think what you do now is you enter another planning stage. There are probably three or four projects that will be done in the next decade that I think will continue to add momentum to this. Right now, the two that are being developed are the renovations of Hutchinson Gym; that will be finished in August. And we’re going to start renovation on Rhodes Soccer Field and building a new field hockey facility right next to us. Those things are keeping us busy right now.

As far as Penn’s teams go, which ones are you happy with right now?

It’s so competitive in the Ivy League. In this year, you have not only teams that have done well within the league and even in the region – but you have Princeton winning the national championship in field hockey and the national championship in men’s and women’s fencing. And this past weekend, Yale won the national championship in men’s ice hockey. So this kind of tug-of-war of what Ivy League athletics look like … there are people that think we have to make sure whatever it is, it has to be different than the rest of the world because the rest of the world is crazy. And then there are those that are saying we’re Division I teams with outstanding student athletes, we should excel in athletics just like we try to excel in everything else. So there’s that tug-of-war going on and I think in the end you can’t keep good athletes down and I think we’ll continue to be a strong presence in Division I.

And I think at Penn, the football championship this year was great because it was a great human-interest story and guys stepped up and the team really got better and played this phenomenal game when very few people gave us a chance to beat Harvard. And we beat them soundly. In the spring, our women’s lacrosse team is always good. Our men’s lacrosse team is nationally ranked and  yet we’re .500ish in the league, so that shows you how strong lacrosse is in the Ivy League. Our softball team is doing great. In the winter, we were one bout from winning an Ivy championship in fencing and then we had a national champion. What we try to do is we try to maintain a broad-base program rather than pick a handful of sports and say those are going to be the sports we care about. And it’s hard to do that. But I think that’s the right thing to do.

You mentioned the hockey national championship. Is there any chance that Penn resurrects its program at some point in the future?

It gets asked about every two or three years. As I understand the policy, in order to come back as a sport, you have to be fully funded from external sources. The University is not going to contribute dollars. And that basically means that in order for Penn to have hockey, we’d have men’s and women’s hockey and we’d have to make multi-millions of dollars of improvements to the facility. And so to endow hockey would probably mean 40, 50 million dollars. And when people hear that they say ‘OK’ and kind of move on to something else. I think in a lot of ways if you turn back the clock, maybe there were other alternatives rather than dropping the sport back in 1979. Maybe in hindsight that wasn’t the best decision. But to bring it back would cost that much money and I just don’t think that exists right now. And our club programs are very successful and the participation is great. So I think we’re probably in a pretty good place with the number of sports right now.

What was your reaction to Harvard winning a basketball game in the NCAA tournament?

You’re proud for the league. You wish it was us. You know, we had such a complicated year because there we were beating Harvard a couple weeks before that and had some other really good games against nationally talented teams where we showed we could play with them. I know a lot of people don’t want to use youth as an excuse and I don’t either, but the question will be, ‘Will these guys that played all these minutes that were mostly freshmen and sophomores learn how to win games when they’re juniors and seniors?’ If they do, I think we’ll be very good. And if we don’t, then we’ll continue to be frustrated. The jury is out.

Bilsky says it’s only fair to judge Jerome Allen after the men’s basketball coach brings in at least a couple of more more recruiting classes.

Is next year kind of like a make-or-break year for the men’s basketball team?

No, it really isn’t. When Jerome [Allen] was hired, as any coach would be, you say that you can’t really define any success until the person’s had a chance to have four full recruiting classes. If you didn’t do that, you’d see coaches like Bobby Knight and Digger Phelps and Mike Krzyzewski [fired] in their first two of three years. So I think probably in fairness, two years from now you’ll have a good sense what Jerome’s able to produce.

You have to be pretty happy about the other basketball program and the job Mike McLaughin has done so far, right?

Yeah, it’s very heartwarming because they’re good people and they’re good coaches. As much as you like to speed things up – everyone wants to win now, whether you’re a coach or a player or a fan – you have to develop a program. And Mike’s really done a good job of developing a basketball program. And they play good fundamentally sound basketball. And the results showed it this year for sure.

In general, as far as the next few years in Penn athletics go, are you feeling pretty good about everything right now?

I am because I think this campaign and what we’ve been able to do with it has just given us such an opportunity to kind of take off from where we are now. So when you have recruits visiting and they see the phenomenal facilities, it speaks to commitment the University has to the programs. I think we’ll be in a position to take off. There are a lot of dynamics that go into the Ivy League. I mean everyone else is trying to be good too. And there’s financial aid dynamics and admission dynamics that are at work, so you really have to be exceptional to win. But we’ve probably never been in a better position in terms of facilities and financially as we are right now.

Are you going to keep doing this job for a while?

I’ve said this for a long period of time: you’ve got to assess it every year. You look for new goals and you look for new challenges in life – whether it’s doing this or doing something else. I’ve never really had much of a chance to think about that because this campaign was so consuming, but at some point I’ll hang it up. And I’ll feel good about it because I’ll be able to pass it on to somebody in what I consider really good shape.

What’s the only thing better than winning a championship? Doing it by beating Princeton. What’s the only thing better than that? Doing it at home.

And so it went Wednesday evening at Franklin Field as the Penn women’s lacrosse team came from behind to top the rival Tigers, 10-9, in overtime to capture at least a share of the program’s seventh consecutive Ivy League title.

Yes, seven. That’s a record for any women’s program at Penn and matches Harvard’s teams from 1987 to 1993 for the longest run of Ivy women’s lacrosse titles in league history.

Because of the win, Penn will also host the Ivy League Tournament on May 3 and May 5 for the fourth straight year. And from there, the Quakers will look to qualify for the NCAA tournament for the seventh straight season.

But before we look ahead at future milestones, let’s take a look back at Wednesday’s memorable win, a game that I was happy to watch live. Here are some highlights, from the first whistle to the last:

• As the game begins, it’s hard not to notice the huge Ivy League championship banners (for 1980, 1982, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012) hanging on one side of Franklin Field. When will the next one be added?
• Princeton’s first possession lasts nearly five minutes but Penn manages to fight it off without giving up a goal. Maybe the Tigers are trying to take a page from their men’s basketball team’s book. Penn head coach Karin Brower Corbett would later mention this defensive stand as one of the game’s key moments, saying, “I was really glad to see my team really make them work for goals.”
• Princeton goes ahead 2-0 but Penn ties it up on goals from Meredith Cain and then Caroline Bunting. Get used to these little comebacks. And Bunting’s name.
• Who needs mascots when you have a Princeton fan dressed in a Tiger suit?
  

  Just a Princeton fan minding his own business.

• With 13:51 to go in the first half, Penn senior Maddie Poplawski sets an Ivy League record for draw control with her 164^th. She’d later remind everyone just how good at winning draws she is.
• In the final minute of the first half, Princeton’s Liz Bannantine shoves Courtney Tomchik to the ground, prompting one Penn fan to say, “They’re playing football!” and another to scream, “It’s not hockey!” This is turning into quite the Penn-Princeton battle.
• Penn ties it up at 5-5 with 27:21 left in second half with a goal from Shannon Mangini (remember that name too) and then again at 6-6 on a Bunting goal with 24:39 left.
• After Penn goes up 7-6, Princeton reels off three straight goals, including the Tigers’ third unassisted free-position tally (if you’re unfamiliar with lacrosse, think a penalty shot in soccer).
  

  The Quakers return to the bench after a second-half timeout.

• Despite trailing by two down the stretch, the Penn bench seems to be upbeat and optimistic. Perhaps they knew something the rest of us didn’t.
• Bunting and Mangini score to tie it up at 9-9 with five minutes left. Game on.
• Princeton tries to hold the ball for the last shot after earning possession with two-and-a-half minutes left but Penn goalie Lucy Ferguson makes a save in the final seconds to send the game to overtime.
• Who needs cheerleaders when one Penn fan has a bullhorn and four others spell the letters P-E-N-N after Quaker goals?
  

  Pretty good Penn spirit, huh?

• In the first of the two three-minute overtime periods, Penn wins the draw (which is very important in OT) but Mangini can’t take advantage of two free positions and Princeton can’t get a shot off at the other end. It’s still 9-9 going into the second overtime. “There’s a sense or urgency but you also have to have a sense of patience, because there is a strategy to the overtime,” Mangini later explains.
• Penn wins the draw again (Poplawki!) and this time Mangini scores a free-position goal after a Princeton penalty to put the Quakers up 10-9 with 2:16 left. “She just had an awesome night,” Brower Corbett would say of Mangini.
• With “Defense” chants raining down from the Franklin Field stands (the Penn parents were very loud and very involved all night), the Quakers preserve their lead, thanks to a big Ferguson save with 35 seconds left. “I wasn’t nervous,” Ferguson says. “Every overtime game we’ve been in, we’ve won, so I was confident our defense would do a good job and if they would get a shot off, it would be a bad one.”
• After the final whistle blows, the Quakers celebrate and then line up in front of their fans for their tradition of belting out “The Red and the Blue.” From winning to singing.

All in all, it was a very fun night at Franklin Field. And while Brower Corbett preferred to talk about this particular game and the next one at Brown on Saturday – “We want to win [the Ivy League title] outright,” she noted – she eventually put the streak of championships in historical contest.

Her final words to reporters: “It’s kind of unbelievable, really.”

Yes, it is.

The Penn softball team opens Ivy League play today against Harvard, which it has had a historically difficult time beating.

But the Quakers do have at least one advantage: they’re playing at Penn Park.

Since its state-of-the-art softball stadium opened in September of 2011, Penn has enjoyed a tremendous home-field edge, boasting a 24-3 record at Penn Park and advancing all the way to the Ivy League Championship series last year.

I wrote about the program’s resurgence in this past issue of the Gazette, interviewing head coach Leslie King, ace pitcher Alexis Borden and star power hitter Brooke Coloma.

Here’s more of what they had to say about how much moving from Warren Field to Penn Park has meant to the program.

KING: “It makes you feel good running out onto that field and knowing that’s your home. You feel good about yourself as an athlete. … From a recruiting standpoint, it’s hard to match those facilities. Recruits are absolutely blown away by it. The backdrop is drop-dead gorgeous. The athletic department has made this investment into our program that I think speaks volumes.”

BORDEN: “The field’s gorgeous. I’m really lucky coming in when I did because the park opened that year. To see what we had before and what we have now is a huge jump.”

COLOMA: “It’s a completely different feeling. With Penn Park, it’s almost because you’re in a stadium that’s so beautiful that it makes you want to be there so much more. Not that we didn’t want to be there on our field. But it takes the feeling to a whole another level. It’s just so nice. There are no bumps anywhere. We never catch a bad hop on our field. It’s a great field.”

Coloma also discussed how more people now watch their games, partly because the field lures casual fans walking through Penn Park that stop to watch a few innings.

There are certainly worse ways to spend a nice spring afternoon. And considering Borden has already thrown a perfect game and a no-hitter at Penn Park, you might just see a cool milestone when you’re there.

So if you live in Philly and want to cheer on some good players in a beautiful park, here’s the rest of the softball team’s home schedule.

Friday, March 29, 2 p.m. – vs. Harvard (doubleheader)

Saturday, March 30, 4 p.m. – vs. Dartmouth (doubleheader)

Wednesday, April 3, 4 p.m. – vs. Monmouth (doubleheader)

Thursday, April 11, 6 p.m. – vs. Villanova

Saturday, April 13, 12:30 p.m. – vs. Princeton (doubleheader)

Sunday, April 14, 12:30 p.m. – vs. Princeton (doubleheader)

Wednesday, April 24, 4 p.m. – vs. Temple

Saturday, April 27, 12:30 p.m. – vs. Columbia (doubleheader)

It’s been a week since the Penn men’s basketball season ended.

But last night, a former Penn point guard captured the imagination of the college basketball world.

Andy Toole C’03, who led the Quakers to the NCAA tournament in 2002 and 2003, coached his Robert Morris team to a stunning upset of defending national champion Kentucky in the first round of the NIT.

Afterwards, the Robert Morris fans rushed the court, the game was splashed all over ESPN (see the pictures below) and Toole, one of the youngest head coaches in Division I, suddenly became a household name.

Of course, Penn fans have known about Toole long before his little-known program channeled its inner “Rocky” (click that link to read a terrific piece that truly sets the scene and explains the “Rocky” theme) to send a home a John Calipari-coached Kentucky team that started the season ranked No. 3 in the nation.

After transferring from Elon, he became, as one former player once told me, “the glue that made everything fit,” taking a team that sputtered in 2000-01 to back-to-back Ivy League championships.

Not long after that, he got into coaching, first as an assistant at Lafayette and then at Robert Morris, where he went back to the NCAA tournament in 2009 and 2010. (The Colonials, by most accounts, were robbed of a first-round upset of Villanova in the first round of the 2010 Big Dance.)

Toole was named head coach the following season, and although he hasn’t been able return to the NCAA tournament, he got a chance to earn his signature moment last night when Kentucky couldn’t play at home because Rupp Arena was hosting the NCAAs and had to travel to Robert Morris’s 3,000-seat gym near Calipari’s hometown.

Toole made the most of the unique opportunity and the Penn grad, who has already heard his name come up in offseason coaching rumors, could now be in line for a bigger job because of it.

But that’s all in the future. For now, let’s leave you with this terrific picture that’s been circulating on Twitter today, of Toole with his son Ryan, just after winning one of the biggest games of his life.

It’s certainly been an eventful start to the season for the Penn men’s lacrosse team.

The Quakers opened the year by beating 14^th-ranked Duke, followed that up with a one-goal win over city rival Saint Joseph’s, flew all the way to Colorado to play Denver (who they lost to) and then beat another nationally ranked team in Lehigh.

And that was all before this past Saturday when Penn got the opportunity to play at PPL Park – the home of Major League Soccer’s Philadelphia Union – in the second game of the inaugural Independence Classic tripleheader.

Even better: the Quakers enjoyed a dominant second half to beat Villanova in front of more than 5,000 fans who made the trip out to the state-of-the-art stadium on the Chester waterfront to watch high-quality college lacrosse.

From left to right, Losco, Doktor, Feeney and Murphy

I, too, went to PPL Park and covered Penn’s impressive win for CSNPhilly.com.  Check out my game story to see what head coach Mike Murphy, junior goalkeeper Brian Feeney, junior midfielder Zack Losco and freshman attack Nick Doktor had to say about the victory, the unique atmosphere and handling the nerves of playing in such a big stadium.

Also, here’s a link to a CSNPhilly.com photo gallery with some cool pictures from the event.

And below is a video I shot from the press box that shows Penn celebrating the victory, as well as the stunning backdrop of PPL Park.

It’s an exciting time for the nationally ranked Penn wrestling program. Fresh off concluding its regular season with a 37-0 demolition of neighborhood rival Drexel – their sixth straight win – the No. 21 Quakers are set for the EIWA (Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association) Championships at Rutgers tomorrow and Saturday, before they gear up for the NCAA Championships in Iowa from March 21-23.

Just days before the EIWAs, I went over to the team’s practice facility at Hutchinson Gymnasium and caught up with Penn wrestling coach Rob Eiter, who discussed the expectations for this year’s team and the state of the program, as well as the popularity of wrestling and what needs to be done now that the sport was controversially dropped from the Olympics.

What’s the mood of the team right now going into EIWAs?

Right now, they’re pretty excited. We had a real good year. It was a long year. I think now that it’s over, they’re excited to get to the tournament because it’s a pretty wide open tournament. There’s not really a true clear-cut team favorite right now. These guys are young and don’t know any better right now.

You guys haven’t won the EIWAs since 1999 and Cornell has won the last six – what it would mean for the program to finally win one after all this time?

It would be awesome. It would really kind of solidify what we’ve been saying the last two years with this team. There are quite a few banners hanging up here and we feel like the team now is back to that stage where we’re ready to really be a force – not only in the conference but NCAA-wise.

Did you get a little extra boost by finishing the regular season with routs of nearby schools Princeton and Drexel?

It’s always good to go out on a win. The nice thing about that was with the back-to-back matches, the kids actually wrestled better against Drexel than they did against Princeton. Usually it’s the other way around where it’s kind of a letdown that second day. So they felt real good about that. It’s a great way to end it and keep your spirits up for the next two weeks going into this tournament.

You recently became the fastest coach at Penn to reach 50 wins – what does that mean to you and did you have any idea that was something you were approaching?

In all honesty, I had no idea. We obviously don’t focus on that and it’s not a huge priority for me. But of course it’s real nice. It’s a nice honor to have but it’s a tribute to my assistant coaches and the team obviously. You can’t do it without those guys.

Individually, Micah Burak has come in second at EIWAs the last three years – what’s his mentality going into this and what would it mean to him and the program if he can win one?

Micah’s pretty even-keel. I don’t think he’s really dwelling on being runner-up for three straight years. But obviously you always want to go out on top. Micah’s training pretty hard right now. Nothing is guaranteed but he’s somewhat of an overwhelming favorite.

Who are some other guys we should really keep our eye on for this tournament?

My other senior, Mark Rappo, has a pretty tough weight but he’s pretty focused right now. On the younger side, at 133, Jeff Canforo has been wrestling pretty well for us lately. Casey Kent had a great year already for us. I just think up and down the line, the guys have wrestled pretty well all year and we should keep an eye on all of them.

Are you looking ahead to the NCAAs yet and what can we expect there?

Sure, you always look ahead and you always make sure you prepare as best you can. This tournament is vitally important to the seeding for the NCAA tournament. So a kid like C.J. Cobb, a kid like Rappo, Burak, they can solidify their seeds and earn a seed as well. But being in arguably the second toughest league in the country helps these guys quite a bit prepare for the NCAAs.

As a former Olympic wrestler, what was your reaction when you saw the news that the sport was being dropped from the Olympics?

It was kind of a shock. I’m not in day-to-day contact with USA wrestling, so I don’t know what they’ve known for years. It kind of sounds like that rumor’s been around for a while. There was always a rumor of Greco being the discipline to be dropped. But never did I ever think that wrestling would be dropped. I think that’s what hurts a little bit. It sounds like there wasn’t much done when the signs were there.

Is there anything that can be done to save the sport in the Olympics?

Yeah, collectively all the countries throughout the world have come together. USA Wrestling was just over in Iran at a huge tournament and a local kid, Jordan Burroughs, became a hero over there. So the fact that it can bring such opposite countries together I think has brought a lot of world recognition. We’re not the most popular sport as far as mainstream. But when it can bring something like that together, I think it shows the importance of the sport and I think that’s going to weigh heavy on the IOC’s decision – hopefully.

So they have to meet in May in St. Petersburg. There’s one spot left and I believe there are eight sports vying for that one spot. So they give a presentation and the IOC in September votes on one sport they want to bring back. Again, it seems like from what I’ve followed, it lit a fire under everybody and they got organized and they have a very powerful plan in place to present to the IOC.

You had mentioned popularity. Do you wish the sport were more popular? And specifically, do you wish the Penn program were more popular on campus?

Sure. It doesn’t have to be the NBA or the NFL but with the time and dedication these kids put in they deserve that attention. It’s a shame because if you’re just a general fan and you haven’t wrestled before it’s hard to understand what these guys go through. But it is right now one of the fastest growing sports at the youth level. So that’s obviously very encouraging. And hopefully those kids will stick with it as long as they can and then their kids will continue. Hopefully it will grow a little bit. But I think what happened with the Olympics obviously brought a lot of attention to it and it piqued a lot of interest and I think and how we handle it from here can really help the sport.

What can we expect when the Penn women’s basketball team welcomes Cornell and Columbia to the Palestra for a pair of Ivy League games this weekend?

If recent history is any indication, it seems that, well, anything could happen.

If you haven’t been paying attention, here’s quick look at some of the historic and bizarre moments the Quaker women have gone accomplished/endured over the past couple of weeks.

• On Tuesday, freshman guard Keiera Ray was named the National Player
  

  Keiera Ray had a breakout performance last weekend

  of the Week by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association after scoring 50 points in two games. It was the first time anyone at Penn has ever won that award (male or female).

• On Saturday, Penn beat Dartmouth by the score of 63-40, the largest margin of victory in 68 all-time meetings with the Big Green.
• That win also clinched Penn’s first weekend sweep of Harvard and Dartmouth in nine years.
• One night earlier, the Quakers beat Harvard for the first time in nine years, snapping a 17-game losing streak against the Crimson. It was also their first time beating Harvard at home since 2001.
• Five days before that, Penn posted its second-largest win over Brown in program history, beating the Bears on the road, 65-48 even though the game was rescheduled from Saturday to Sunday and came at the end of an exhausting road trip to New England (more on that below). Penn now owns its first-ever three-game winning streak in Providence.
• One night before knocking off Brown, the Quakers ended up playing in a
  

  Here is where Penn played Yale two weeks ago

  PRACTICE GYM at Yale after a blizzard dropped three feet of snow on New Haven, forced the game to be rescheduled several times and caused a leak in Yale’s normal arena, the Lee Ampitheater. Throw in the fact that Penn’s team hotel was nearly evacuated the night before the game at 4 a.m. because of flooding and you have a few reasons why Penn dropped a 65-56 decision to the Bulldogs.

It’s actually a shame Penn had to play Yale in such unique circumstances because, led by junior Alyssa Baron, sophomore Kara Boneberger and freshman Ray, the Quakers are looking like an Ivy League title contender. Coach Mike McLaughlin’s squad is currently alone in second place, two games behind powerhouse Princeton.  Had Penn beaten Yale, perhaps Princeton might be feeling the heat even more.

But at least the Quakers were good sports about it their wild, snow-filled weekend in New England. Take a look at this cool video below to see what I mean.

It was Penn. Of course it was Penn.

(Imagine that being the case today.)

Returning everyone from a 2001-02 team that went 4-0 in the Big 5 and battled back from three early league losses to win the Ivy title, expectations were certainly soaring for the Quakers heading into the 2002-03 campaign. And the excitement on campus was palpable, with some people predicting that the team could be the best one since the Jerome Allen-Matt Maloney days in the early 1990s – or maybe even before then.

Today, the players on Fran Dunphy’s 2002-03 squad – a group led by point guard Andy Toole C’03, forwards Ugonna Onyekwe W’03 and Koko Archibong C’03, sharpshooters Tim Begley W’05 and Jeff Schiffner C’04, and sixth man Dave Klatsky W’03 – will probably tell you they underachieved because they didn’t win a game in the NCAA tournament.

But that’s not entirely fair.

The team still boasted a sterling 22-6 overall record, dismantled USC by 38 points by shooting a school-record 72 percent from the field, and raced through the Ivy League unbeaten to earn a second straight 11 seed in the NCAA tournament.

How hard is it go 14-0 in the Ivy League? The 2002-03 squad is the last team at Penn to do it and only the seventh in program history to accomplish the feat (with the others being the 1969-70, 1970-71, 1992-93, 1993-94, 1994-95 and 1999-2000 teams).

In honor of the 10-year anniversary of the 2002-03 Ivy champs, I decided to take a look back at one of that season’s most memorable wins – a 73-66 win over Brown on this date in 2003. And I decided to do so with the help of Klatsky, who buried probably the biggest three-pointer of his career with 40 seconds left to turn a two-point lead into a five-point lead and sent the Palestra crowd into frenzy.

You can watch the shot here.

Now let’s turn it over to Klatksy – an assistant coach at Colgate – who was kind enough to offer his thoughts of that game, the unlikely rivalry with Brown and the season in general…

After starting as the team’s point guard as a sophomore, Klatsky became an effective bench player during his junior and senior years.

On what he was thinking before making the shot:

“Koko, what are you doing – why are you passing me the ball with three seconds on the shot clock?  Oh, you’re passing it to me? OK, I’ll shoot it – thank god Forte is letting me shoot it.”

On his reaction after making the shot:

“I had just hit one of two threes so that third one really was make or break. If I make it, I finish the last couple minutes hitting two huge threes. But if I miss it, then I took two huge threes and missed both of them. I loved taking huge shots but I sure am glad I hit two of three and didn’t miss two of three.”

On the rivalry with Brown:

“We knew the Ivies were going to be really strong that year. Yale was still a great team but they lost some close ones early, Princeton was very solid that year and we knew Brown had a chance to be good in the preseason because they returned the nucleus of their team. By the time the first meeting rolled around we knew they were a legitimate threat. They had really good players and had a lot of experience. Both of the Brown games that year were unforgettable. I’ll never forget going to play at their place later that year which was basically for the championship (since it would put us two games up) and having their fans line the sidewalks when our bus arrived. If that wasn’t enough, they had Chris Berman announce the starting lineups. You couldn’t ask for a more electric atmosphere for a college basketball game.”

[Editor’s note: Then-Brown coach Glen Miller added flames to the rivalry when, shortly after Klatsky’s shot and Penn’s win at the Palestra, he told reporters that his team “got jammed up our asses by three officials” and that they “outplayed [Penn] the whole freakin’ game.” Those unsportsmanlike comments made his hiring at Penn three years later troublesome to some fans and alumni.]

On going 14-0 in the league:

“We had a lot of expectations coming in to the year and that caught up with us early as we dropped two of three to start the season and then got smoked at Colorado. I don’t think anyone truthfully expected a 14-0 Ivy season with as good as the Ivies were that season. It helped that we were a veteran team and knew how to win games. Unless you’ve played in the Ivies, it’s hard to explain how tough it is to play and win on the road in those back-to-back games.”

On some of his best memories of the season:

• Going to California and having Koko’s family take care of us all and then having what seemed like everyone he ever talked to come support us at the Forum for what is arguably the best Penn game in history when we shot 80 percent in the first half and beat USC by 40.
• Playing that season with NB on our shorts in tribute to Tim Begley’s father Neil who passed away before the season.
• Playing a tough Oklahoma State team in the first round of the tourney and loving the matchup when it showed up on TV and hating it when we realized how good their guards were – i.e. Tony Allen.
• Being disappointed that we didn’t make noise in the NCAA tourney because I had such confidence in our team and truly believed we had the capabilities to make a run. In that respect, as well as we did, it still seems like we underachieved.
• In the last game of the season, we already clinched the Ivies but we still had our game at Princeton left. It’s Penn-Princeton, so records don’t really matter. As we got to Jadwin, Andy Toole realized he didn’t pack his shoes. As Toole warmed up in running shoes, our managers were on the horn trying to get a hold of a friend who was coming to the game. Luckily for us, our friend Matt Mezvinsky was able to bring the shoes to Andy ten minutes before game time.  I’m pretty sure Coach Dunph never knew about this.”

Many thanks to Klatsky for sharing such great memories from such a special season – and a special shot.