The Penn women's soccer team, coming off an impressive showing at the Harvard Invitational, hopes to avoid a serious letdown today when it crosses Chestnut Street to take on Drexel at Drexel Field. The Quakers (5-2-1) played some of their best soccer of the year while competing against two of the top 10 teams in the New England region -- No. 3 Harvard and No. 10 Boston University. Penn lost a classic overtime game, 2-1, to the Crimson on Saturday before coming back the next day to defeat the Terriers in a deceptively easy 3-2 victory. The Quakers, who earned votes but narrowly missed the top 10 in the Middle Atlantic region rankings, hope to make a case for top-10 status at 4 p.m. this afternoon against the struggling Dragons. Drexel (3-5-1) is actually a much-improved program, having already matched its win total of a year ago. But the team is coming off a 3-1 loss against Towson and tied Temple 1-1 earlier in the year. Penn, on the other hand, delivered a sound 4-0 beating to the Owls on September 29. "Drexel will play a pretty physical game -- that's going to be their strategy," Penn coach Andy Nelson said. "They're going to have a hard time matching up on the technical level of the game. We can't take them lightly and think that we're going to beat them 4-0 just because they tied Temple and we beat Temple 4-0." The Quakers have been showing better team chemistry than they did earlier in the season. The mixture of old and new players, which proved to be confusing at times earlier in the year, has lately been showing its positive side as the younger players have been able to complement veteran leadership by finding a way to fit into the team's overall picture. More specifically, there has been better communication between the forwards and midfielders. "We've been encouraging the strikers to play the ball backwards to the midfielders, so we can bring the midfielders into our attacking game more," Nelson said. "We want to get more varied types of chances instead of just passing the ball from midfielders to the strikers who then shoot at the goal." Kelli Toland benefitted from the new effort to involve midfielders in the offensive game last weekend, when she scored three goals in two games. Another midfielder, Sarah Campbell, has also seen her shot attempts and offensive activity increase under the new strategy, although she has yet to find the back of the net. "Sarah Campbell has done a really good job of switching the field and taking the ball from a tight space to an open one," Nelson said. "She keeps the ball moving and is more unpredictable than most people who play her position." The Quakers have been trying to maintain their team chemistry while increasing their substitution numbers. Nelson wants to play 15-16 players in each game, and he has lately been able to play approximately that number. Penn's back four defenders, goalkeeper and one of the central midfielders generally play the entire contest but other positions are substituted during the course of the game. "It's hard to play one person one minute and another person the next and keep the same kind of chemistry," Nelson said. "The plus side of doing that is that we get fresh legs into the game and we'll be more prepared and experienced if we have injuries later in the season." Nelson is particularly worried about staying healthy during a stretch between October 16 and October 24, when the Quakers play five games in nine days. Substituting more now may occasionally hurt the team's chemistry but will make Penn a more prepared team in the future. Today, the Quakers will be focusing on the present as they try to continue their stellar play and impress Middle Atlantic region voters with a solid win against their University City rival.
The Daily Pennsylvanian is an independent, student-run newspaper. Please consider making a donation to support the coverage that shapes the University. Your generosity ensures a future of strong journalism at Penn.
DonatePlease note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.