Penn holds on to beat Columbia

The Penn women's soccer team, coming off a tremendous 5-1 win over Lehigh, looked to secure its all-important first win in Ivy League competition Saturday at Columbia. The Quakers (4-3-1, 1-2 Ivy League) stormed onto the field with the same intensity and dominating play they showed in the Lehigh game. Eventually their efforts paid off in the form of a 1-0 victory, their first Ivy win of the season and their first-ever league win on the road. "We really played our type of game, passing to players' feet rather than to open spaces," Penn coach Patrick Baker said. Yet at halftime the game was scoreless. "I think we were almost trying too hard to score in the first half," junior midfielder Yuka Morita said. The four attackers -- Darah Ross, Becky Dalton, Morita and Kelly Stevens -- were swarming the net throughout the first half, but to no avail. "We created lots of opportunities, but we just didn't capitalize," senior defender Heike Krippendorff. It was these missed opportunities that allowed Columbia (2-5, 0-2) to stay in the game. "I'm sure if I had made my shots and a few others had made theirs, this would have been an entirely different game," Morita said. Ross and Stevens were being smothered throughout the entire first half, preventing Penn from getting on the board. "Columbia's defenders were all over them, grabbing and pulling their jerseys," Baker said. In the first half, Ross and Stevens were not in the game together. This is where Baker made his adjustment. When the team took the field in the second half, Ross and Stevens played together, and this combination made the difference for the Penn attack. "It worked immediately," Baker said. In the 47th minute, a free kick from the left side led to a scramble in front of the net, where Kelly Stevens got the ball and tucked it past the Columbia goalkeeper for a 1-0 Penn advantage. Shortly after that, the Lions raised their level of play in search of an equalizer. Perhaps it was a sense of urgency that inspired Columbia's play, but for the remainder of the game the Lions attacked the Quakers' defense and forced Penn to rise to the challenge and protect its slim lead. "We scored right off the bat in the second half and then switched to a defensive mode." Baker said. Of course, this defensive approach was by necessity rather than choice. "They forced us to play on our heels," Krippendorff said. "We had a tendency to give up the lead this season, but we held our ground." The Quakers certainly did just that, thwarting every attempt by the Lions to tie up the game. Much of that credit has to go to freshman goalkeeper Amelia Urban, who "played a great game," according to Baker. Penn as a whole also had an impressive showing in New York. "It was a great overall effort," Baker said.