M. Soccer spoils Stony Brook's finale

The Quakers made the Seawolves look like fish out of water while picking up their fourth win of the season. The Penn men's soccer team played its final home game of the season yesterday and, like it has through much of the season, the Rhodes Field turf decided to get in on the action. Depending on who you talk to, the Quakers stopped a six-game skid with a 2-0 victory over Stony Brook either in spite of or with a little help from the patchy, torn-up playing surface. "I think we were a better team so I think the field was an equalizer for [Stony Brook] today," Penn coach Rudy Fuller said. "It kind of evened the two teams out because we weren't able to play the ball around like we would like to." The Seawolves, however, seemed most directly affected by the field conditions, as Stony Brook forward Juan Serna's pass to teammate Anton Allen on a breakaway early in the second half went awry after taking a bad bounce. What could have been an excellent scoring opportunity for the Seawolves resulted in only a forced Allen shot right into the arms of Penn keeper Mike O'Connor. "Maybe there's a slight advantage for [Penn] because they play on [Rhodes Field]," Stony Brook coach Scott Dean said, "but in reality, a bounce is a bounce." Penn's (4-10-2) two second-half goals, however, had little to do with the field conditions. Junior Mike McElwain broke the scoreless tie with 26 minutes and 47 seconds remaining in the game. Quakers sophomore Evan Anderson found an open McElwain down the left side of the field and the York, Pa., native fired a shot off goalie Brian McOmber's fingertips into the left side of the net for his team-leading fifth goal of the season. Both teams continued on the attack after McElwain's goal and, with under four minutes remaining, Stony Brook (4-13-1) almost tied the game on another breakaway. Allen got just behind Penn junior Henry Chen and fired a shot from 18 yards away on a drawn-out O'Connor. But the Quakers goalie dove to his right to knock the ball away. And less than 30 seconds later on the counterattack, Anderson hit nearly the same spot McElwain did in the netting to give Penn a commanding two-goal lead. "The ball just bobbled loose from them and Billy [Libby] played me a great ball to net," Anderson said. "All I had to do was get it past him to the back of the net." An Allen shot with 1:20 left that soared 10 feet over the goal was the best offense the Seawolves could muster in the final few minutes, as Penn held on to give O'Connor his third shutout of the season. With eight saves, senior co-captain O'Connor had to work hard to keep Stony Brook off the scoreboard -- especially in an early second-half barrage of Seawolves' shots. Breakaways by freshman Michael Kokolakis and senior Keith Ginsberg and a shot off a cross by freshman Bryan Baracaldo kept him busy in the first five minutes of the second half. "I wasn't too happy with the way we came out the second half, and I got on the guys a little bit," O'Connor said. "But we settled in and tried to make some changes." The Seawolves also had chances to score in the first half, most notably a shot by Serna that hit the upper right post. But bad breaks are nothing new to the youthful Stony Brook team, as the Seawolves are 0-4-1 in overtime games and have had 16 shots hit the post in 18 games. "We get opportunities, chances to score and we hit the crossbar," Dean said "It's almost like we're snakebitten." The Quakers managed to neutralize the Seawolves' best scorer, senior Moses Sarr. Earlier in the season, the midfielder from Ibadan, Nigeria, scored seven goals in the span of a week. Yesterday, however, he was rendered nearly invisible under the close supervision of Penn freshman Eric Mandel. But in many ways, the match was affected by the environmental conditions -- and not just the playing surface. Stony Brook made the unusual choice of playing against the wind in the first half so as not to be looking into the setting sun in the second half. "We knew the sun was going to set down and be tough for the second half," Dean said. "We chose to ride it out, defend and keep the slate clean and get out of the first half." The Seawolves then turned up the offensive pressure in the second half, but could not capture any breaks in their final game of the season.