W. Soccer tries to stay perfect at Cornell

The Penn women's soccer team, 5-0, opens its Ivy season tomorrow. You know the difference. It's what separates the Chicago Bulls from the Seattle Supersonics. It's the difference between the 1954 Cleveland Indians and the immortal New York Yankees. It's why Green Bay is called "Titletown" and Buffalo isn't. What this difference? One word: championships. The Penn women's soccer team begins Ancient Eight play tomorrow at Cornell (1-3, 0-1 Ivy League), seeking its first league championship in the team's eight short years of history. The Quakers have raced out to an impressive 5-0 record with a balanced, ball controlling style of play that led to goals from several different players. The Ivy League schedule presents several challenges for the Red and Blue, most notably previously ranked Dartmouth (2-1-1) and Harvard (2-2, 1-0 Ivy). That said, it's imperative for the Quakers to get off to a fast start in order to avoid falling behind. Yale (4-0, 1-0 Ivy) and Princeton (3-0, 1-0 Ivy) lead the current league standings with unblemished records, but face the Crimson and Big Green respectively. "[The league opener] sets the tone for the rest of the season," junior goalkeeper Anne Kluetmeier said. "If you win, you feel confident. If you lose, it's an ego deflator and you start to focus on the negative aspects instead of the positives." Saturday's game at Berman Field will begin at 11:00 a.m. and will be followed by the men's match-up. Both Penn and Cornell bring streaks of consecutive games posting a zero on the scoreboard into the contest. Unfortunately for the Big Red, the only game where they weren't the team shutout was against Bucknell. Most recently, Cornell was blanked by seventh-ranked Penn State. Although this makes the Big Red look easy on paper, the Quakers aren't anticipating a letdown. "Even though our record is 5-0, our record in the Ivy League is 0-0," senior co-captain Kelly Stevens said. "Cornell is the start of what we hope is a successful season of league play. We are looking forward to the traditional powerhouses, but we have to beat the teams that aren't traditionally strong because all the games count the same in the standings." Last year's 2-0 victory gave Penn its first win ever against Cornell, who lost four seniors from last year's team with '97 captain Becky D'Aleo taking an assistant coaching position after Lori McLauren left for Springfield College. Twelve Big Red players have scored this year, led by freshman forward Lori Kurtz's two goals. Sophomore midfielder Sophia Smith is the only other Cornell player to post more than two points, with one goal and one assist. But the Quakers are confident that Cornell cannot defeat them, since the Big Red play just three fullbacks and four halfbacks. "[The 3-4-3] is great for us because of the fact they're going to have so few people back and with our aggressive style of play we're going to swarm them in the back," Stevens said. But even with an impressive start, Penn is not an Ancient Eight favorite, with Dartmouth already having an impressive win against Clemson and a tie with Stanford. Penn, however, doesn't mind the dark horse status. "Last year a lot of teams took us lightly and we came in there and surprised them," Kluetmeier said. Regardless of how they do it, Penn knows that eight key wins would forever guarantee the '98 squad respect and notoriety.