This was the kind of performance the Penn women's soccer team was looking for.
After dominating large stretches of last weekend's 2-1 loss in their Ivy League opener at Harvard, the Quakers (4-2-2, 1-1 Ivy) came as close as they have all season to a complete game, defeating Cornell, 3-1, at Rhodes Field on Saturday.
Although the Big Red (5-2-1, 1-1 Ivy) took the lead less than five minutes in, the Quakers tied the score a minute and a half later and controlled the rest of the game.
Penn came out in a 4-3-3 formation, looking to get on the board early -- but the opposite happened when Ali Gombar passed the ball to Emily Knight, who then beat Penn goalkeeper Vanessa Scotto on a breakaway.
Quakers' coach Darren Ambrose then decided to change to a 4-4-2 formation, and his decision paid off almost instantly. Sophomore Meg Pittman got the last touch on a Jenna Linden corner kick in the seventh minute which Cornell was unable to clear, and the Quakers tied it at one.
"Meg Pittman was a big, big difference in that game," Ambrose said of the sophomore midfielder.
Ambrose also praised the team's ability to change formation on the fly to adapt to trailing so quickly.
"We adjusted, and we did a great job," he said. "Credit to the girls for adjusting, getting up and getting the job done."
Cornell nearly took the lead again in the 15th minute when Scotto came off her line to try to stop Shannon Fraser's run down the right wing. But Fraser got around her and was able to serve the ball into the box. Senior defenseman Heather Issing cleared the ball and prevented Knight from scoring her second goal.
Ten minutes later, Penn took the lead for good when sophomore Carolyn Cross scored off a pass from junior Katy Cross.
In the 64th minute, junior Lydia Bojcun served a corner kick which three Quakers jumped to meet, with Robin Watson getting her head on the ball to score the final goal of the game.
"We need to keep capitalizing off those set pieces because we work on them so often in practice, and finally we just had a good one," Bojcun said.
Ambrose was pleased to see it all come together.
"It was a team effort," he said. "It wasn't pretty all the time, but Ivy games aren't. Ivy games are about winning."
Issing would have rather not had the Quakers start from behind, however.
"It sucks. I hate being scored on first," she said. "And we responded, and we couldn't ask for more than responding... but it actually, that shouldn't happen. We've got to be able to get past that."
The team's next chance to do so will come tomorrow when they make the short trip to Drexel for a 4 p.m. kickoff.
