Field Hockey lays goal-scoring egg against Blue Hens

Penn's scoring woes continued as Delaware shut out the Quakers. An October chill descended upon Franklin Field last night but it was nowhere near as cold as the Penn field hockey team's sticks have gone lately. With a 1-0 loss to Delaware, Penn dropped to 1-6 and was still left with concerns about its lack of scoring. "This game was very frustrating to me from the beginning," Penn coach Val Cloud said. "We didn't play with composure at times. It's hard to figure this team out. Sometimes they play well together. Sometimes, it's like you wonder if they know hockey." The players were also left bothered by the result. "We just can't piece together 70 minutes of hockey," Penn senior forward and co-captain Leah Bills said. "We play superb and then we let down for a little bit.? It's hard to pick up once you let down." Penn's defense played well in the first half despite a breakdown that led to the game's only goal by Delaware's Katie Wirth, but seemed to tire in the second half, as they allowed Delaware many quality scoring chances. The lone goal, which was enough to send Penn to its fifth straight defeat, came with 12:40 left in the first half as the ball trickled in past Penn goalkeeper Alison Friedman's left side following a goal-mouth scramble. "The first goal shouldn't have been a goal," Cloud said. "It was a very poor effort defensively. It was one of the sickest goals I've ever seen." "The goal took a lot of wind out of us," Bills said. Penn found the loss especially frustrating because Delaware had lost six in a row coming into the game, including a 4-0 shellacking at the hands of ninth-ranked James Madison Sunday. The Quakers' inability to get quality scoring chances, however, helped Delaware get over this losing streak. "We need to create opportunities for ourselves," Penn senior forward Courtney Martin said. "[We need to] just take lots of shots. You're not going to score a goal if you don't take a shot." This proved to be difficult against Delaware's defense, as the Blue Hens stifled Penn's attempts to get into the circle and take quality shots. Delaware goalie Kelly Ottati also played well, stopping a shot off a Penn corner with her chest pads late in the second half to keep the shutout intact and hand Penn its fourth one-goal loss. "We played well enough to win," Cloud said. "We just did some not very productive things." The Quakers can ill afford to do those things when they play at Columbia on Friday night. The Lions are winless in Ivy League play and Penn doesn't want that to change anytime soon. "We have to come out hard. We have to score early.? When we beat Villanova, that's what we did," Bills said. "We have to take them seriously." "We need to focus on ourselves and what we can do," Martin said. "We need to win."