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The 3-1-1 Quakers hope to revive their offensive attack against struggling Temple. The Penn women's soccer team is undefeated in Ivy League competition this season at 2-0. With one of those wins coming against perennial conference title contender Dartmouth, the Quakers have exceeded the expectations of many and are in a strong position to contend this year. The problem is, Penn only has two goals total in those two wins. And in one of those games, the goal did not even come until overtime. As a result, the Quakers have been working on creating more scoring opportunities through better attacking and control of possession. Penn hopes to show offensive improvement today when it travels to Temple to take on the struggling Owls (3-3-1). Temple is coming off a 2-1 loss to Lehigh and a 6-1 thrashing at the hands of St. Joseph's. Last year, the Quakers (3-1-1) easily defeated Temple 4-0, which gave the Red and Blue a 5-0 record at the time. Penn is not convinced that this year will be more of the same. "I think it's a big game for them, so we need to go out and dictate the game from the beginning," Penn coach Andy Nelson said. "We need to just worry about what we're doing and not worry about how good the other team is." The Owls are led by senior Lori Brennan, who has five goals and five assists in only seven games. After two straight 1-0 wins, however, defense is not the major concern for the Quakers. Penn has been concentrating its efforts on getting the ball wide and then crossing it to the middle of the field on attacks. The Quakers, who average approximately five or six corner kicks a game, have also been working on improving that aspect of their offense. The team has two set plays for corner kicks and has been trying to turn them into consistent scoring threats. Penn has spent the majority of its time working on controlling possession. Nelson has been displeased by the number of unforced turnovers committed by the Quakers and the team's inability to hold onto the ball long enough to mount attacks on the goal. "We need to keep possession of the ball so we can release players towards the goal while we still have control," Nelson said. "We need to also have more than a couple options when we're going forward with the ball." One aspect of the possession game which Penn is focusing on is winning control of balls in the air. This has been a concern for both the offense and defense in an attempt to create and prevent easy scoring opportunities, respectively. "We're really concentrating on doing a better job of heading the 50-50 balls on defense," senior co-captain Deane Kocivar-Norbury said. "I think that defensively we're finally feeling really comfortable within the system which has made a big difference to us in the last week." The Quakers can feel confident about their defense because of the way it has held up in the last two games against Dartmouth and Cornell. Penn has held opponents scoreless for over 180 straight minutes. The offense, however, remains a question mark despite all of the work in practice aimed at producing more goals. The Red and Blue, however, feel confident that the work will pay dividends in today's game at Temple. "I think we've done a lot of preparation in practice to improve our offensive game," Kocivar-Norbury said. "I think we should definitely see more scoring opportunities in the game."

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