M. Soccer hopes to finish on the other end of Ivy standings.

No where to go but up. The Penn men's soccer team entered last season on a high, having finished the '96 season tied for second in the Ivies. But after a seven-game losing streak before the mid-point of the season, the Quakers (1-6 Ivy League, 4-12-1 overall in '97) seemed downtrodden and out of focus. This weekend, though, an upbeat, young Quakers team begins its 1998 season at the Old Dominion Tournament in Norfolk, Va. The team faces William & Mary (2-0) on Friday at 5 p.m., and Old Dominion (1-0) on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. They begin with a new head coach, former Georgetown assistant Brian "Rudy" Fuller. With Fuller came a new assistant in former American University standout Jonathan Pascale, and a new, more team-oriented offense brought to the Penn program by the pair. The Quakers could enter their 1998 season dwelling on the changes the program has undergone in the past year, but instead the team has taken a new, more committed approach to its play this season. "Our whole system of play [this year] is a lot more passing and a lot more team-oriented work, and not a lot of individual stuff," junior midfielder Reggie Brown said. "It's a new level of team commitment this year." Outsiders and pundits may warn the Quakers about having lofty expectations for this campaign, as the team lost 13 total players, and five of its six top goal-scorers from a year ago. But with two preseason draws last Friday at Mercer Junior College with teams that had defeated them last season, the Quakers instead see only the positives of their new system. "Definitely, our excitement level is up this year. Everyone on the team believes we can win," senior defender Jared Boggs said. "In the past it seemed like people were more driven by fear, but now we have a more positive attitude." According to returning team members, coach Fuller, 27, and assistant Pascale, 23, bring a younger, fresher and more American style of play to the team than former coach, Scottish-born George O'Neill did. This season, the Quakers will feature a change in their style of play from a classic individualized attack mode to a more team-oriented game. "Our game is more about staying compact and communicating [now]," junior midfielder Jason Karageorge said. "One line doesn't move up without another one coming up to take its place." The team will likely rotate between a 3-4-3 and a 3-5-2 setup on the field. "The guys can play well in either set-up," Fuller said. "And our ability to do this makes us more dangerous." In addition, this new system will tighten up a defense that allowed an Ivy-high 31 goals last season. "The system, if played well, is very difficult to score against. It's very difficult for the other team to score soft goals against us," Fuller said. "I would expect that our goals against would get cut down significantly." For the Quakers, communication on defense and teamwork should not be hard to find. Despite being hard hit by personnel losses, the team still returns 11 field players -- including seven who started more than 50 percent of the games from last season. In tri-captains Boggs, senior midfielder Ralph Maier and junior goalie Michael O'Connor, the team has an experienced core of returning leaders who have been together and know what it takes to compete for the Ivy crown. Junior Tom Hughes brings a 6'6" frame and a Second Team All-Ivy selection a year ago to complement junior middle back Ted Lehman on defense. Brown and Karageorge will round out a solid returning midfield. "A lot of talented guys who sat on the bench before are finally getting a chance to play," Karageorge said. "So the excitement level is real high this year." The fact that the team currently has only 19 "recruited" players on its roster -- including four goalkeepers -- could concern some, but it doesn't seem to phase the Quakers. "Our freshmen [Aaron Cohen, John Salvucci, Carlos Torres and Robert Gibson (out with a hamstring injury)] have done very well in fall practice," Fuller said. "They should be able to give us some quality minutes and be quality contributors this season." In addition, the team held walk-on tryouts earlier this week and took on an additional four freshmen and three sophomores to their roster. "There is not one player that we don't have full confidence in," stressed O'Connor, whose four shutouts in his freshman season are a good example of first-year players stepping right into Ivy play. "Every sub can go in and do the job. There's five guys sitting the bench who can go in and do what needs to be done. There are 14 possible starters -- it's not like we have 11 guys and then the bench." What could be a concern for the Quakers this season, though, is a less-than-potent offense. "We have tried to put together a system that really takes advantage of the experience we have in the back and the talent we have in the middle of the field, and really maybe hide the fact that we don't have an out-and-out striker on the team -- a guy that has a nose for the goal that can stick the ball in the back of the net," coach Fuller said. "How we need to score goals is through numbers getting forward. We have to attack as a team." Last year, the Quakers put only 15 goals on the board in 17 games, and the team has netted only one in the course of five scrimmages since last spring. "We had a string of one-goal games [last year] that we lost. The first weekend at a tournament we lost the last two games 1-0, and the same thing the next weekend? it kind of just snowballed from there. Guys were just getting frustrated," O'Connor said. "We're hoping not to run into that this season. We want to get a couple of early victories and get the snowball started the other way." The Quakers will get their chance to start their snowball on its way at the Old Dominion Tournament this weekend. The team didn't face either Old Dominion or William & Mary in last year's campaign. ODU was 6-3 at home last year, and William & Mary -- which features junior All-American Adin Brown and his stingy 1.12 goals against average in net -- was ranked No. 18 in pre-season polls. A year ago this weekend, the Quakers won their first two games. Hopefully the team can combine a little bit of its past with a lot of its future to pull out a couple of wins this weekend.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.