Field Hockey opens with two hard losses

A new year brings a clean slate.

The advantage of a fresh start is one that the Penn field hockey team hopes for, following a disastrous 2000 campaign.

"We're all pretty pissed off after last year," Penn coach Val Cloud said.

After going 3-14 last season, including an 0-7 mark in the Ivy League, the Quakers are glad to start a new season. However, they do not wish to forget the lessons they learned the hard way a year ago.

"We feel we've really improved," Penn sophomore goalie Carrie Wilhelm said. "We didn't have the game experience before last season. This year we're more confident and we have the game experience."

Penn's increased experience is evidenced by the squad's nine returning starters. Leading the way are senior co-captains Nikki Battiste, who led the team with nine goals and 19 points a year ago, and Monique Horshaw, the team's top defender.

Junior midfielder Kylee Jakobowski also returns to Franklin Field this season, having contributed four goals a year ago, Penn's third-highest total. And Quakers junior Mandy Doherty paced last season's team with three assists.

Behind a solid defense, which figures to be the strength of the Quakers this year, Wilhelm -- a Hamburg, Pa., native -- notched a team-best 1.7 goals-against average and made 73 saves last season.

"Everybody's a year older and we just have to play as a team," Cloud said. "We're starting mostly upperclassmen... who have been with us for a while. No one shines above anybody else. We are a team."

The experience of last year has yet to prove beneficial, as the Quakers fell in their first two matches last weekend to St Joseph's and Ohio State.

But the St. Joe's match was a one-point loss, and the Buckeyes are perennially a top-ranked school, finishing last season 16th in the country.

The early losses, then, have done nothing to temper the team's burgeoning confidence entering the Ivy League season.

"We just have to disguise our passes and communicate better," Horshaw said. "We have no problem staying optimistic."

The season continues tomorrow for the Quakers when Villanova visits Franklin Field for Penn's last tune-up before the Ivy League schedule begins Friday at Harvard.

"We need to beat 'Nova to have confidence going into Harvard," Wilhelm said. "The first Ivy's a big game to get us on the right track for the whole year."

If Penn wishes to entertain the notion of breaking Princeton's seven-year stranglehold on the Ancient Eight crown, then the Red and Blue must work on finishing games as strong as they begin them.

The Quakers lost eight one-goal games in 2000, including heartbreaking overtime games to Harvard and Yale.

All in all, the Red and Blue had five overtime losses, including three straight to start the season.

"We played more together [as a team] in the preseason," said Cloud, who is in her seventh season as Penn's coach after 15 years as an assistant. "And we worked hard on not being able to finish."

This season the Red and Blue wish to take the next step toward respectability and, eventually, an Ivy title.

But that might be a while off. Penn was a full two games behind Yale (2-5) in the Ivy League standings and was outscored, 19-1, in its last three Ancient Eight contests.

"Our goal is to get above [.500]," Cloud said. "That is realistic. Everyone has to do their part."

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