W. Soccer ready to start season with Lafayette

The grueling two-a-days in the heat and humidity of late August are now over for the Penn women's soccer team. Now it's time to get down to the real business at Rhodes Field, and that starts tomorrow against Lafayette.

Fourth-year coach Darren Ambrose can look out at a fully renovated Rhodes Field and enjoy a 27-player roster of his own creation that will look to regain its Ivy League title from two seasons ago.

In order to bring some hardware back to Philadelphia, the team has realized that it must sharpen its focus, leading to an emphasis on defense over the last two weeks.

"Like any good team, you figure out how to stop teams scoring goals first," Ambrose said. "If you don't get scored on, you don't lose."

But he also believes that despite the emphasis on defending -- which resulted in scoreless draws against Princeton and Columbia in scrimmages Sunday -- the offense is ready to kick it into high gear.

"We have the best forwards in the league," he said. "If we'd not worked on any of our defending and given up a couple of goals, maybe that wouldn't have concerned me either."

Team cohesion has also been an issue in the past, but there has been improvement, according to co-captains Vanessa Scotto and Heather Issing.

"We had some chemistry problems when I was younger," junior midfielder Issing said. "I think as the team goes deeper, the team becomes closer."

Scotto, a senior goalkeeper, echoed those sentiments.

"Everyone gets along really well on and off the field," she said. "I think it's just going to come together great, and it'll just show in this weekend's game."

The weather has been a problem this week, and at times has been much more like Ambrose's birthplace Sheffield, England, than what Philadelphia is accustomed to this time of year.

Heavy rains have forced the team into the Hollenback Annex at times this week, but Ambrose says that the team's morale hasn't been dampened.

"It's detrimental in that we haven't always been able to get out onto the field," he said. "But in terms of spirits... the girls are in great spirits. They've worked very hard."

Both Issing and Scotto have enjoyed the muddy conditions on Rhodes Field.

"We're mudders," Issing said. "We can play in the mud, rain -- it's easy.

"I just overheard Anna [Halse, a junior goalkeeper, say] that was her favorite practice so far," she added.

The goalkeepers got quite a bit of close contact with the playing surface yesterday.

Halse, Scotto, freshman Ashley McCloskey and sophomore Jessica Keeley's jerseys were all completely brown, except for a wide untouched stripe down their backs.

"We had a lot of fun rolling in the mud today," Scotto said. "The four of us were a mess. But those are our favorite practices -- goalkeepers like to get dirty."

The last time Penn faced Lafayette, the Quakers came away with an easy 4-0 win in Easton, Pa., two years ago. But Issing does not expect this game to be quite as easy.

"They're a big, strong team," she said. "I don't know how their team has changed since [2001], so I expect it to be a tough, long, hard game."

Scotto, however, was more optimistic.

"If we play our game it won't matter," she said.

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