Men's Soccer continues current slide

The Penn men's soccer team took its roller-coaster season to Easton, Pa., yesterday to face Lafayette. The downward part of the ride continued as the Quakers fell to the Leopards 4-1. After three opening losses, the Quakers rallied back with a 3-0-1 record in their next four games to bring their record back to the .500 mark. Penn has lost three consecutive games since that point, moving its mark to 3-6-1. The Quakers' defense started off strong, allowing only five shots in the first half. One of them, coming at the 19-minute mark, beat Penn goalie Andrew Kralik to give the Leopards a 1-0 lead. That was the only goal for either side in the first half. Brendan Sullivan called the team's performance in the first half "flat." Penn had four scoring chances, but was unable to capitalize on any of them. The Penn band was not present to do any halftime show, perhaps because of band guru Greer Cheeseman's pulled groin injury. The Leopards came back after the half and dominated the rest of the match. Only four minutes into the second half, Geddes Alexander scored the first of his two goals for the game and what would be the game-winner for Lafayette. Brendan Sullivan, continuing his impressive play, responded for the Quakers with 22 minutes left in the match to bring Penn within one goal. Sullivan has scored a goal in three of the last four matches. He thinks this may be a result of his new position. "I've been moved from forward to sweeper, so maybe since I'm coming out of the back, I'm just left open. I really can't explain it," he said. Alexander came through again for the Leopards only seven minutes later. While on a breakaway, Alexander beat Kralik with a shot into the left side of the net. Alexander continued his assault on Penn 10 minutes later, when he slipped a pass to Chris Hartz, who banged in Lafayette's fourth and final goal of the game. Freshman Austin Root attributed Lafayette's dominance of the second half partially to the fact Penn had to play against the sun and the wind. He also felt the Quakers came out slower in the second half. Sullivan said one reason Lafayette scored three second-half goals was the Quakers were pushing players up in order to score. This led to less defensemen and more scoring opportunities -- such as Alexander's breakaway -- for Lafayette. "In order to get a goal, we were giving up goals," Sullivan said. One bright spot for the Quakers, in addition to the recent play of Brendan Sullivan, has been the performance of senior co-captain Steve Marcinkiewicz. He has a total of 18 points on the season, two more than the 16 points he scored last season. He also is currently second in scoring in both the Ivy League, and Philadelphia Soccer Seven standings.