M. Soccer plays Big Green to scoreless tie in home opener

Dartmouth senior Michael Lewis races downfield on a breakaway opportunity ten minutes into the second half. Penn goalie Michael O'Connor comes out to meet Lewis. The Big Green forward shoots. And misses, high and to the left of O'Connor. Forty-six minutes later, in the first overtime, Penn forward Eric Mandel is the recipient of a cross pass right in front of the goal. The Quakers freshman heads the ball toward the right post, but Dartmouth goalie Ben Gebre-Medhin knocks it away at the last second. These were probably the two best opportunities for Penn and Dartmouth to score yesterday, but no one could find the back of the net. While the two teams combined for 46 shots, the contest ended in a scoreless tie. It's not as if a low-scoring game came as a surprise to either team, however. Penn (0-1-2, 0-0-1 Ivy League) had scored just 11 goals in its past 18 games, while Dartmouth (0-2-1, 0-0-1) lost its two previous games this season by 1-0 scores. So 120 minutes of scoreless soccer was not exactly an unrealistic outcome. "Dartmouth is a very defensively oriented team," Penn coach Rudy Fuller said. "It's tough to score on a team like Dartmouth because they play to not give up goals and hope to get one somewhere along the way." Although the scoreboard did not show it, Penn outplayed Dartmouth for much of the day, as the Quakers outshot the Big Green 27-19. More importantly, however, Penn had a 13-5 advantage in corner kicks. "Any time you're getting the amount of corners that we got," Fuller said, "it says something about your attack because you're playing the game in their end." But Dartmouth, a team that plays games with defense as its first, second and third priority, did not break under the constant Quakers pressure. Gebre-Medhin, who had 16 saves in only his third start in goal, was brilliant. The Big Green sophomore repelled every kind of shot Penn gave him, shining brightest when it mattered most under the constant Quakers heat at the end of the second overtime. "I was so close to my first shutout, I wasn't going to let it slip away," Gebre-Medhin said. "No crap goals were going to go in." Penn goalie O'Connor put in a stellar performance as well, making nine saves despite injuring his hip for the second weekend in a row. O'Connor, who did not play in overtime last week against James Madison because of a hip injury, went down after a collision with a Dartmouth player in the second half. Yesterday, however, the senior co-captain remained in the game. "It definitely wasn't as severe as last time, but it bothered me a little bit," O'Connor said. "I was a little upset because that was the second time a guy didn't really play the ball, he played me." O'Connor may be credited with an unassisted shutout, but his defense deserves a good portion of the credit. Led vocally and physically on the field by senior Jason Karageorge, the Quakers defenders took much of the pressure off O'Connor, preventing striking opportunities for Dartmouth. The Big Green have had trouble finishing in their first two games, but the Penn defense made it difficult for Dartmouth to even get a clear shot yesterday. "I think in our first couple games we created a lot of chances, but [yesterday] our final pass was very poor," Dartmouth coach Fran O'Leary said. "What really hurt us wasn't so much bad finishing, but the final ball to create an opportunity." Penn, on the other hand, had the chances -- just not the conversions. John Salvucci shot high off a Reggie Brown corner in the first half. A open header by David Bonder went wide right. Consecutive corners near the end of the second half result in a missed shot by Eric Mandel and a pick out of the air by Gebre-Medhin. "Obviously, the offense is frustrated," O'Connor said. "They worked a hundred percent but unfortunately didn't get one in the back of the net."

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