After watching Saturday’s heartbreaking loss to Columbia from the sideline, junior goalkeeper Ben Berg will start for the Penn men’s soccer team.
Berg and the Quakers (4-4-3, 0-1-1 Ivy) will face American in Washington at 3 p.m. this afternoon.
Coach Rudy Fuller replaced the Whitefish Bay, Wisc., native this past weekend and gave freshman Garon Smith his collegiate debut.
“[He has] been playing well in training,” Fuller said. “We gave him the game and thought he did well, [but] Ben will be back in the goal for us tomorrow.”
Berg comes back just in time. He will face an American team (6-3-1) that is currently riding a five-game unbeaten streak, and is coming off a riveting game.
Trailing, 1-0, Saturday to Lafayette in the game’s waning seconds, a Leopards penalty awarded American midfielder Nick Kapus with a free kick about 30 yards away from the goal.
Kapus’ kick sailed straight in, to tie the game with less than a minute remaining in regulation. A goal by junior forward Mike Worden in the second overtime gave the Eagles their fourth victory in their last five games — the one non-win was a draw.
American sits atop the Patriot League with a conference record of 3-0-0, thanks largely to their miracle against Lafayette. They lead their all-time series with Penn by a margin of five games to three, but all three of these victories came in the last four meetings.
Penn comes into this game from quite a different angle. Though Smith played effectively in goal for them, he failed to stop one shot — a penalty kick off the foot of Columbia’s Pepe Carotenuto in the 80th minute.
Berg expressed sympathy for his teammate.
“Obviously I want to be in the net every time,” he said. “But Rudy made the call to put Garon in. He did a good job … it’s unfortunate [Columbia] got a PK. He played well though.”
American’s Daniel Shannon will undoubtedly be on the Quakers’ radar. He has scored four goals and tallied four assists in his team’s first ten games. Berg, however, is not too concerned.
“We’ve played teams with plenty of good attackers — Penn State’s [Jason] Yeisley, Columbia had Bayo [Adafin] and Pepe [Carotenuto],” Berg said. “We shut them down pretty well, they didn’t get off [to] too much of a pop.”
This contest will be the non-conference finale for the Quakers, as they’ll play their final fives games against Ivy League teams. Penn is 2-0-0 against Patriot League foes this season, defeating both Lehigh and Navy by a score of 2-0.
“We’ve got a really strong back line, I think we can really take care of anybody in the country,” Berg said.
