SEASON PREVIEW: 11 starters return for M. Soccer

Going 7-1-1 in their final nine games, the Quakers hope to start the 1997 season in the same fashion. Coming off their first winning season since 1984, the Penn men's soccer team has spent the last nine months anticipating the beginning of the 1997 season. Behind the effort of captains Read Goodwin, Brad Copeland and Morgan Blackwell, the Quakers look to be top contenders for the Ivy League crown and the automatic NCAA tournament bid that comes with it. Unlike the 1996 season's 1-5 start, the Quakers plan to pick up where they finished off, going 7-1-1 in last year's concluding games. With their 4-3 Ivy League record in 1996, the Quakers tied Cornell and Yale for second place, while Harvard took the crown. "Everybody has come back in great shape," Penn coach George O'Neill said. "We are continuing from where we left off. They are coming in with the same attitude that they had in the final half of the season when they went 7-1-1." In entering his fifth season, O'Neill's squad is returning all 11 starters. Included in those starters, Blackwell, Copeland, Goodwin and sophomore Brian Foote each earned 1996 Ivy League honorable mention status. After offseason surgery on his knee, sophomore Mike O'Connor, the 1996 Ivy League Rookie of the Year and second team All-Ivy member, returns in goal for the Quakers. The 1997 offense will be led by Blackwell, who finished second on the team in scoring (six goals, two assists), along with senior Jason Smoke and juniors Matt Huebner and Austin Root. In the midfield, Goodwin, Foote and last year's leading scorer, junior Gregg Kroll (five goals, five assists), will see most of the action. Sophomores Reggie Brown, Jason Karageorge and David Bonder challenge them and each other for starting roles. On defense, the depth becomes Penn's greatest asset, as Copeland, senior Mark Schwartz, juniors Ralph Maier and Steve Cohen and sophomores Ted Lehman and Tom Hughes will share time keeping the ball out of reach of the opponent's offense. Penn believes its overabundance of quality players should give it leverage over many of its opponents. "It is a huge advantage -- not only because we are returning all of these guys with experience but also because we are returning six or seven guys on the bench that can compete for a starting spot," Foote said. "The team is really deep. I think you are going to see a different starting lineup a lot of the time, because we have so much depth." In preseason play, Penn defeated Division III Mercer County Community College and tied Princeton last Friday, 2-2. "We saw a lot of positive things, but we also saw some rustiness that only games will rectify," O'Neill said. "In particular, the general attitude of the team in listening to everything said and trying to make it happen was positive." Highlighting this year's schedule, the Quakers open at Harvard this coming weekend and play national No. 2 Cornell at home October 12. The Quakers, ranked third in the Mid-Atlantic region behind Rutgers and Penn State, have a chance to defeat the 11th-ranked Nittany Lions September 26 at College Park, Pa. With only a couple weeks of structured practices, the Quakers feel their team has come together. Coming from a program that has never expected tremendous success, the Red and Blue have taken any pressure on them to win and transformed it into an excitement of playing soccer this season. "We are super-excited, because we are starting to get the recognition that we deserve," Foote said. "We see ourselves doing nothing but going to the NCAA Tournament and winning the Ivy [title]."

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