SEASON PREVIEW: New style, new faces are future of M. Soccer

The Penn men's soccer team will open up its preseason schedule today when it scrimmages nationally ranked Princeton at Rhodes Field. The Quakers, who went 5-11-1 overall and 1-6 in the Ivy League last season, enter this season with a young team that seems to be oozing with potential. But potential alone will not lead Penn to its first winning record since 1984. "It's going to take hard work and chemistry," Quakers coach George O'Neill said. "The camaraderie among these boys is terrific." Penn lost seven seniors, including two-time leading scorer Steve Marcinkiewicz, to graduation. For a team trying to rebound from more than a decade of mediocrity, such a change may be turn out to be a positive. "This year's team has plenty of freshman, and that gives us a fresh new attitude," Penn sophomore forward Steve Cohen said. "There was a lot of tension last year, and things weren't clicking. But we've been working hard this preseason, and we're pretty confident things will work out. "Youth is our greatest strength. But the fact that everyone's so inexperienced means it's also our biggest weakness." In order to catalyze the Quakers' chemistry, the team spent a week together in Ocean City, N.J., this summer. While in the seaside resort town, the players practiced twice a day and ran daily. Another benefit of having a young team is that Penn's starting lineup is still up in the air, meaning that players will have to work in practice to impress the coaching staff in the preseason and win playing time. "Nobody has a guaranteed position yet," O'Neill said. "[Our lineup] is going to fluctuate from game to game. Whichever players will do the job for us, that's who we'll use. If it's a freshman, it's a freshman." O'Neill, who is entering his fourth season at the helm of the Penn men's soccer program, will try to recapture some of the success that the Quakers enjoyed during Bob Seddon's 19-year stint as head coach from 1968 to 1986. Seddon guided the Quakers to a combined record of 163-85-29. Since he gave up soccer coaching duties to focus on running the Penn baseball program, the Quakers have gone 45-80-12 under Steve Baumann and O'Neill. O'Neill hopes to use a more aggressive style of play this year, keeping with his Scottish background. In Scotland and England, teams usually attempt longer passes downfield passes to put pressure on the opposing goal. This is in contrast with the conservative, short-passing style that is in favor in many other countries. "We have to mix up short passes and long passes," O'Neill said. "When we get the ball, we want to attack the net and make other teams play our kind of rhythm. Last year, we conceded too many goals." Today's matchup against conference power Princeton will be used as preparation for the Quakers' September 13 regular season opener against Philadelphia Textile. "We don't really think about Princeton until November," Penn senior midfielder Read Goodwin said. "The scrimmage is just a chance to get a look at them." Whichever contest they choose to concentrate on, the Quakers primary hope is that the young talent will make this a breakthrough year. "You've got to look at this season positively," O'Neill said. "We haven't had a winning season in so long, and we've got a lot of young, hungry players."