W. Soccer looks to get back to winning ways

The Penn women's soccer team will face non-Ivy rival Delaware. Showing at 3:30 p.m. this afternoon on Rhodes Field -- Revenge of the Quakers, Part II. After a loss to No. 22 Harvard Oct. 3, the Penn women's soccer team came back in its next match to beat Seton Hall 3-2 in overtime. Now it's Delaware's turn to face the wrath of the Red and Blue, which were shutout 3-0 at No. 15 Dartmouth Saturday. And the Quakers say that it ain't going to be pretty. "Delaware's going to be sorry that they're playing us," said Penn co-captain Lindsey Carson. "We're out for revenge." "We definitely want to redeem ourselves," Penn defender Shannon Porter said. "We've got to come back, and we're definitely excited to get a win back [against Delaware]." The chances are good that the Quakers (7-2-1) can tally another mark in the win column against the Blue Hens (3-7-1). Penn might even have the chance to add to its seven shutouts already recorded earlier in the season. Delaware has been shut out in five of its seven losses on the season and has failed to score more than two goals in any of its games thus far. Penn coach Patrick Baker warns that today's opponent might have the ability to achieve more than its less-than-stellar record indicates. "Delaware has probably out-played and out-shot a lot of teams this year, but just came up short on the scoreboard," he said. The Quakers defense will have to keep a sharp eye on Delaware's main scoring threat, forward Mandy Merritt. Merritt was the Blue Hen's leading scorer last season as a freshman and already leads her team with two goals and two assists this year. "From what I've heard and seen, [Merritt] has a really good pace," Baker said. While the Penn defense attempts to contain Merritt, the Penn offense should have a pretty easy job of netting some goals on the Blue Hens, which have already given up 21 goals in their 11 games played. "For whatever reason, they've just given up a lot of goals this season," Baker said. Perhaps because of the low quality of this Delaware team compared to Penn's other recent opponents, Baker will not provide much of a scouting report to his team before today's match. "Not giving my players a scouting report will lend itself to our group being more intense and more focused," he said. "Our players are good enough to recognize in the first 10 minutes who to watch for and who the fastest player is. "We just need to get back to basics and play our game." Baker's players echo his sentiments on not knowing too much about today's Delaware team. "We just need to be thinking about us, play our game and do our own thing," Porter said. "We're just going out and just going to play." One Quaker who may not just go out and play is captain and leading scorer Kelly Stevens. Stevens suffered a concussion after colliding with Harvard's goalkeeper in the Oct. 3 loss to the Crimson. She has been unable to play in Penn's last two matches, but Baker said that she has an evaluation and may be cleared to play before the Delaware match. With or without Stevens, Baker knows that his team needs to make up for its loss to Dartmouth. "We have to come out and make a statement in our play and hopefully the score will be reflective of that," he said.