When current seniors Erin Beck, Sarah Banks, Alex Dayneka and Erin Thayer held up the Ivy League trophy as sophomores — the only hardware of their Penn careers thus far — it came after a similar scenario to the one they will encounter this weekend.
In 2010, the Penn women’s soccer team played Brown in its second-to-last game of the season, when it needed to win to stay atop the Ivy League standings. Though the Quakers had the luxury of being in first place going into the match, they still needed a victory against the Bears to maintain their position in the title race.
With two games left, the women’s season is on the line in a similar way this weekend.
Penn (8-5-1, 4-1 Ivy) will face Brown (7-7, 1-4) on Saturday in a game the Red and Blue must win to stay in contention for the Ivy championship.
The Quakers are currently tied for second place with Dartmouth and are one game behind Princeton, which they will face in the final match of the season. If the Quakers best the Bears, the Penn-Princeton showdown could either clinch the championship for the Tigers or send Penn into a three-way tie for the Ancient Eight title.
Beck sees some similarities between the 2010 squad and this year’s team.
“It’s been a season of ups and downs as far as our win-loss record and things not always quite falling for us,” she said. “My sophomore year and this year we’ve struggled at times to get goals and keep goals from being scored against us.”
Though Brown has only won one Ivy decision all season in a match against Cornell, a team with one total win to its name, the Quakers have had difficulties against the Bears before.
Last season, Penn drew a 0-0 tie in Providence, R.I. However, Beck attributed the result to the bad weather conditions.
“Our tie with them last year — although a tie in any situation, there’s never an excuse — we were under unbelievably miserable conditions,” Beck said. “A lot of people think the game should have been postponed … I think a lot of people who suffered through that game last year are excited to get another kick at it and show we were the better team last year.”
But Penn’s 2010 campaign against Brown wasn’t so easy either. The Quakers were down 2-1 going into the second half but managed to rally together to pull out a 3-2 win in overtime, setting themselves up to win the Ivy League.
“I think Brown is a team that’s pretty physical,” Beck said. “They’re a bigger team. Those types of teams give us trouble sometimes when we try to play soccer around them and don’t get into our tackles and take control of the game right off the bat.
“That game I remember very well, and for us that year it was a decisive win in our road to taking the Ivy League title.”
Saturday night’s match will also serve as the Quakers’ senior night. However, Beck isn’t getting caught up in the emotion.
“Even though it is exciting and fun and a little sad for it to be senior night, we need to keep our emotions in check,” Beck said. “The evening is about getting a win.”
But even as the seniors say their formal goodbyes to Rhodes Field, the Red and Blue have an arsenal of leaders prepared to take their places. Junior forward Kerry Scalora has been an offensive menace all season and leads the team with four goals. Junior forward Kathryn Barth is not far behind with three.
Though this may be the seniors’ last hurrah at Rhodes Field, they have no intention of letting it be their last meaningful contest of the season.
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