W. Soccer still winless in Ivy League after shutout

The Penn women' soccer team lost 3-0 to a nationally ranked Dartmouth team. The Penn women's soccer team is used to seeing a zero on the scoreboard at the end of a game. Earlier in the season, the Quakers went an amazing seven straight games without giving up a goal, leaving their opponents with the sight of a big goose-egg next to their names as they walked off the field. But when that big goose-egg is seen next to the Quakers' name -- that's something different altogether. It's not only something different, but "really disappointing" according to Penn co-captain Tina Cooper. It's what No. 15 Dartmouth (8-1-1, 3-0-0 Ivy League) did to Penn for the first time this season, holding the Quakers (7-2-1, 0-2-1) scoreless in a 3-0 loss in Hanover, N.H., Saturday afternoon. Penn coach Patrick Baker said that the score of the game was not reflective of his team's play. "We did everything that [Dartmouth] did," he said. "On the day they just turned out to be the better team." Cooper said that her team's expectations were high before the game, especially after a 3-2 overtime win earlier in the week against Seton Hall. The Big Green also had high expectations for itself, taking the ball directly to the Penn defense from the first kick but failing to score in the opening minutes. Not until the 20th minute did the Quakers fall into a rhythm and begin creating offensive chances, Cooper said. One of these chances came when Ashley Kjar made a one-two pass with Kelly Toland and found the Dartmouth goalkeeper far off of her goal line. Kjar tried chipping the ball over the backpedaling goalie, but the Big Green netminder had a big enough jump to get a fist on the ball and punch it over the crossbar. Dartmouth soon had an answer to the building Penn offense. With five minutes left in the half, Dartmouth's Abby Gillard notched the Big Green's first goal by deflecting the ball off of a Penn defender and into the net. Cooper called this a "deflating goal" and said that it really brought down the Quakers' energy level on the field. "It was like a little pin in our balloon," Baker said. "It let a little bit of the air out of our team." Baker tried to pump something back into his squad at halftime, but he wasn't expecting the hole that Dartmouth defender April Rasala would tear five minutes into the second half of play. In the 49th minute, Rasala made a run from the Dartmouth backfield while her team had the ball in Penn's half of the field. The ball was passed to the open Rasala near the 25-yard mark, and the Big Green defender booted it past Penn goalie Anne Kluetmeier and into the upper right corner of the goal. "We knew from the scouting report that she was good on the long-ball," Baker said. "She can hit a ball over a long distance like nobody's business." Still, Penn tried to keep itself in the game, creating a few more shots and keeping Dartmouth under control on defense. In fact, Dartmouth didn't even score its final goal of the match. An attempted clearance by Penn defender Jackie Flood was mis-hit and sent into the back of the Quaker net in the 66th minute, making the score 3-0. After the own-goal, Cooper said the Quakers gave up trying to get back into the match. "The last 15 minutes felt like forever," she said. The zero facing the Quakers now is the one sitting under the Ivy League win column. The zero also symbolizes the probability of the Quakers climbing into the Ivy title race or gaining an NCAA berth.