Seven shutouts, no Ivy wins for W. Soccer

The Penn women's soccer team hosts three-time defending Ivy champion Harvard in a criticial Harvard in a critical match. By tradition, the Penn women's soccer team has never been considered a strong Ivy League or NCAA contender. Through the program's first six years, starting in 1991, the Quakers kept a secure hold onto the bottom three spots in the Ivy League standings, winning only four of its games through 1996 and never beating tomorrow's opponent, Harvard. Then, last season, the team surged to a 5-2 finish in the Ivies, earning the second-place position in the league and its first-ever post-season birth. In the final game of the East Coast Athletic Conference championships, the Quakers redeemed themselves against Yale, one of the two Ivy League teams it had lost to in the regular season, to win the conference title. Now Penn (6-0-1, 0-0-1 Ivy League) has the chance to exorcise the demons from last season's other Ivy League loss when it faces the No. 22 Crimson (4-2-1, 2-0-0) at Rhodes Field tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. And the conditions couldn't be better for Penn coach Patrick Baker. His team has not conceded a goal in its first seven games of the season and has only last weekend's scoreless tie against Cornell to flaw an otherwise perfect record. With almost all of his players returning from last year's turn-around season, Baker is not surprised by his team's success thus far. "If people would have told us that we would have been undefeated and not scored on before playing Harvard back in August, I would have told them, 'Without a doubt,'" Baker said. Baker and his players also have no doubt about the implications of tomorrow's match against the Crimson, which has won the Ivy League championship three years straight. "If we win it's going to make a huge statement around the nation," said tri-captain Kelly Stevens. "People are going to see that our record is legit." A win against Harvard would certainly legitimize the accomplishments of this year's Quakers team, whose amazing shutout streak has been scrutinized by some saying Penn has only played mediocre teams so far. Even Harvard's women's soccer web page says, "If you look at [Penn's] schedule? they haven't faced anyone tough." Stevens admits that, having not played a nationally ranked team so far, the team's schedule may seem soft, but she doesn't think anyone should underestimate the ability of this Penn squad. "Last year we didn't believe we could beat a nationally ranked team," she said. "This year we do." That means the Quakers believe they can take down a Harvard team chalk full of stellar players, including 1995 and 1996 Ivy League Player of the Year Emily Stauffer and 1997 Ivy League Player of the Year Naomi Miller. Stauffer and Miller will lead a Crimson team which Baker said is "not nationally ranked for nothing." So what is it going to take for this Penn team to knock off one of the national powerhouses? "We need to play 90 minutes of soccer where everyone -- on the field and on the bench -- has all of their attention focused on beating Harvard," Stevens said. Baker likes the chances of his team coming up on top when the final whistle blows. "They deserve it," he said. "To enjoy a win on a game like on Saturday is something -- as a coach -- you want them to have. "It will provide the team and the program with a huge confidence boost." And a boost which could eventually lead to Penn's first Ivy League championship and the beginning of a new tradition.