Penn, Szelest ready for rematch with Maryland in NCAA lacrosse quarterfinals

Sometimes you're just in the right place at the right time. Take Emily Szelest, for instance.

Szelest, the senior starting goalkeeper for the Penn women's lacrosse team, was running sprints during her middle school team's field hockey practice when she was approached by John Battaglino, the girls' lacrosse coach at Bethlehem Central High in New York.

"He was watching me," Szelest said. "Then he goes, 'Hey you! Ever think of playing lacrosse?' "

Battaglino, who currently serves as the associate women's lacrosse coach at the University of Albany, was looking for someone to step into the cage immediately because his only netminder was graduating. And Szelest, a forward on her field hockey team, apparently looked like she could fill that void.

"I loved playing street hockey goalie with the boys when I was growing up," Szelest said. "So I figured I'd give it a try. I'd never really thought much of the sport until that. I did a clinic and it all started from there. I ended up enjoying it."

Before the start of her freshman season, Szelest and Battaglino worked a lot on her technique. From there, it was on to immediate stardom. Bethlehem Central, located in Delmar, just west of Albany, ended up winning the NYS Section II Championship all 4 years she was in goal (2003-06). And fresh off those successes, Szelest was highly recruited and visited several colleges - but it was Penn that stood out from the rest.

Szelest and the Quakers (15-3) play at top-ranked Maryland (19-1) tomorrow afternoon in the NCAA quarterfinals as the Quakers look to avenge a 12-6 loss during the regular season.

"I just loved it from the moment I got there," Szelest said of Penn. "It just felt like home."

Szelest had to wait 2 years before she became the starter. But once she did, she certainly made the most of her opportunity, leading the nation in goals-against average (6.11) as the Quakers advanced to the 2009 NCAA Final Four before ultimately falling to eventual champion Northwestern in the semifinals, 13-12, in double overtime.

"That was awesome," Szelest said of her individual accomplishments, as well as her team's. "It's weird when you're in that position. I remember being in high school and watching girls play on TV in the Final Four and just thinking how amazing they are. It's like you put them on this pedestal, and then realizing you're in the same position as those girls that you looked up to. It was a neat realization and it's weird because I don't think I'm as amazing as they were."

Szelest has followed up her dazzling junior year with an equally stellar senior campaign, going 14-3 with a 7.08 GAA and a .460 save percentage. She enjoyed one of her best performances of the season last Saturday, stopping a career-high 18 shots as the eighth-ranked Quakers bested ninth-ranked Boston University, 14-9, to advance to the quarterfinals.

"I had been struggling the past couple weeks before that," she said. "Goalkeeping is different from the other positions. You try so hard, but sometimes it doesn't click. You've just got to continue to stay focused and sometimes it's easy to forget that. But against Boston University, it felt great. It felt fun. It felt like I was back."

"The game before we made a goalie change and she handled that very well," Penn coach Karin Brower Corbett said. "I just told her that the tournament was a brand new season; a time to refocus. And she played extremely well."

As for the Terps, "They're extremely athletic," Brower Corbett said. "They have a lot of scoring threats and they're fast. We're really going to have to play as a team."

With Szelest returning to her old form, the Quakers will have a chance.

The West Chester women's lacrosse team will take on Lock Haven tomorrow afternoon in Gettysburg for the right to advance to the NCAA Division II national championship game.

The winner will meet the winner of C.W. Post and Adelphi on Sunday afternoon in a game that will be televised live on CBS College Sports Network.