Question: how is the Harvard field hockey team like Madonna?

Answer: they both got dumped by Penn.

The Material Girl had her problems with a young man named Sean about a decade ago, but the Crimson lost to the Quakers by a 5-2 score only three days ago in Philadelphia.

Harvard (1-1 Ivy, 3-5 overall) has now lost two straight games, and four out of five altogether, to teams ranked in the top 20. Penn is 18th in the country, and the Crimson lost to 19th-ranked BU on Wednesday by the score of 4-2.

Both of these losses were strikingly similar. In Boston and Philly, Harvard had trouble creating good attacks and maintaining a solid defense.

"Penn is made up almost entirely of juniors and seniors," captain Megan Colligan (sweeper) said. "Their experience really showed, because they took advantage of every mistake we made."

Harvard started off the game pretty well, but soon, the Quakers shed their pacifist image and stepped up their attack.

As a result, Penn scored two goals with 22:30 and 17:37 to go in the half, respectively.

The Quakers would never really let up on offense. The game totals had 24 shots inside the circle for Penn, along with nine corners and 22 shots on Harvard junior goaltender Jessica Milhollin.

"I think that defensively we weren't strong enough and not aggressive enough," sophomore attacker Daphne Clark (one goal) said. "They had tons of corners that we can't be letting them take."

To the Crimson's credit, however, the team fought back. Down 2-0, and with the first half winding down, Harvard put itself on the board in a manner that is extremely familiar to the team.

With 7:29 left to play, Clark batted home a corner shot, with assists by Colligan and junior Carrie Shumway.

But the high would be short-lived. Penn scored with only 2:17 left before the halftime break.

This was a pattern for the whole game. It seemed as though whatever Harvard could do, Penn could do twice as well.

The second half was not much different from the first. Penn scored quickly, and Shumway tailed almost immediately after that to make the score 4-2.

The comeback would be again short-lived. Only four minutes after Shumway's goal, Penn notched up another one, which ended the scoring for the day.

It was not a great day for Harvard, to put it mildly.

"We need to play more consistently," Clark said. "We need to be moving the ball and getting it to the offense." Penn  5 Harvard  2