W. Soccer picks up first win of season over Lehigh

Yesterday at Lehigh seemed, at first, like another typical day for the Penn women's soccer team. Sophomore Yuka Morita's injury and dime-size hail falling on the field prior to the game appeared to foreshadow imminent disaster for the Quaker squad. Sloppy first-half play led to a Lehigh goal and it seemed as if the Quakers were en route to their sixth consecutive loss of the season. "I was thinking, 'Not again,' " sophomore Lisa Paster said. "I was concerned. I didn't want to lose to a team like Lehigh." Paster's words were echoed by electric second-half play by the Quakers. Penn held on to defeat the Engineers, 3-2. "I knew we weren't playing our game in the first half," junior co-captain Heike Krippendorff said. "The general attitude was, 'We've had enough of this.' " "To be honest, I had flashbacks of [last Tuesday's loss to] Bucknell," Penn coach Patrick Baker said. "We were by far the better team. This particular time we were able to respond with a great equalizer." The Quakers (1-5) equalized when junior co-captain Meg Kinney drilled a free kick into the Lehigh box and sophomore Nicole Caruso directed it into the net. "After Nicole hit it in, I felt a ray of hope," Krippendorff said. "All I thought about was making Lehigh pay for all our losses and the goals scored against us." Besides the momentum-swinging goal, solid goalkeeping on the other side of the field by freshman Perry Cohen helped the Quakers balance a slow first half. "Perry kept us in the game with four or five good saves in the first half," Baker said. "She smothered some balls and handled them cleanly." With the score tied at 1 after one half, the Quakers returned to the sidelines to face Baker. "Coach expressed that this team should not beat us," Krippendorff said. "It gave me confidence. He boosted our egos. It was a complete 180 from the first half." When the Quakers took the field to begin the second half, it appeared as if a new team was taking on the Engineers. "In the second half, we realized how much we wanted to win and how much we would need to work to get it," junior co-captain Kelly Nolan said. "We definitely dominated the second half." Moving the ball with speed and accuracy, Penn spent most the time attacking. With about 15 minutes remaining, freshman Darah Ross penetrated the Engineer defense and sent the ball to the back of Lehigh's net. "[Darah] had a great day," Baker said. "She kept getting in behind the defense. It was great to see her hit that great shot." With Cohen and Ross leading the way, many of the other young Quakers, among them freshman Samantha Drohan, contributed to the solid second-half showing. "Sam got 30 to 35 minutes in the second half," Baker said. "It was a steady performance. Sam did a great job of stepping in and contributing." Many other of the Penn non-starters followed Drohan's lead and helped whenever they could. "We played 18 or 19 players and we're forcing them to jump out and play," Baker said. "They've been showing me they can play." Sophomore Heather Hearson also did her fair share to ensure a Penn victory by drilling a 20-yard goal past the Lehigh goalkeeper. "One thing I was happy about was we were up by one goal and that wasn't enough," Krippendorff said. "We wanted another." With the second half winding down, the Quakers began to taste their first victory of the season. "We don't know how to preserve a lead," Baker said. "You want to be patient, but instead we were playing rush, rush." Penn's neglecting to stall out the clock allowed the Engineers to score a goal with about eight minutes remaining. All of a sudden, an imminent Quaker victory was up for grabs. "You're afraid the momentum is going to swing," Paster said. "When Lehigh scored their goal it was suddenly 3-2. The whole team was really nervous." "We were praying we didn't make one more mistake," Krippendorff said. "It was a little panicky. One thing we did different this game was we fought for the game." Penn managed to evade any major miscues and held on for the victory. "It definitely lifted our spirits," Nolan said. "We needed this win. If we lost, it would have been real hard to come back and get a win. It came at a perfect time." "We fought. We played at a whole other level," Baker said. "We did everything we possibly could and we won. We played the game of soccer and battled it out with them and we were showing some good intensity." The Quakers will hope to continue playing with intensity when they face Temple next Tuesday. Baker admitted the team will have to improve on its lackluster first-half performance, but in the meantime, the Quakers will savor their hard-earned win.

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