According to Penn men's soccer coach Rudy Fuller, nine Penn athletes will serve the first game of a two-game suspension tomorrow for an unspecified violation of team rules. He would not say which players were suspended.
So with the faintest hopes of defending their Ivy League title still alive, a depleted Quakers (4-6-2, 1-3 Ivy) team heads to Providence, R.I., for tomorrow night's matchup with No. 11 Brown.
Penn finds itself with its back against the wall as first-place Brown (8-3-1, 4-0) can mathematically eliminate the Quakers from title contention with a win or tie in any of their three remaining Ivy League contests.
The remaining Penn players who are making the trip to Providence are well aware that they are in for a challenge tomorrow night.
"The guys that are traveling know that they are going to have 90 to 110 minutes, probably every guy on the field playing the whole time," said junior defender and team co-captain Erik Hallenbeck, who will be playing. "We just want to work hard for each other and work hard for the team and go up there and get a win."
The Bears have been impressive in their undefeated Ivy League play so far, including scoring a league-high nine goals in four league games. Princeton and Columbia are tied for second with four goals.
"They're a very athletic team," Fuller said. "They're a very dangerous team on the restarts and I'm sure they're going to come out flying."
Even with a very small chance of rallying to win the Ivies, the Quakers -- if nothing else -- still hope to play the role of spoiler against the Bears.
"It's not the position that we want to be in, but we want to win games," Fuller said. "We don't see a game left on our schedule that we can't win."
"There's nothing better than to take down an undefeated, first-place team in the Ivies," Hallenbeck said. "People might call us an underdog or spoiler, we definitely think we're just as good a team as Brown, but we're going up there to knock them off."
Penn and Brown had games scheduled for Wednesday but they were postponed due to inclement weather. Both squads should be well-rested after having a week off since their last game.
With an undermanned roster, the Quakers are looking to make the most out of their matchup with a talented Brown squad.
"We want to go up there and win," said sophomore forward John Rhodes, who will be playing. "We want to go up there and prove everybody wrong and try and establish something for next season and salvage something out of the season."
