Like a bicycle brought out of summer storage upon returning to campus, it took some time for the Penn women's soccer team to get its gears to click together this past weekend.
Once that happened, the fans at Rhodes Field were treated to some impressive attacking soccer. But it came too late for the Quakers to avoid a 2-0 loss to the College of Charleston and a 3-2 loss to Texas A&M;, ranked No. 17 in the nation last week by Soccer America magazine.
Against College of Charleston on Friday, Penn struggled to get past a tightly packed Cougars midfield and backline.
The Quakers had a good chance to score in the 20th minute, when senior forward Katy Cross put classmate Rachelle Snyder through on goal, but her shot rolled wide of the left post.
Fourteen minutes later, Cougars forward Megan Broderick got the game's first goal when Penn goalkeeper Jessica Keeley couldn't quite stop Broderick's shot, and the junior tapped in the rebound.
Another defensive lapse in the 58th minute led to Charleston's second goal. Penn freshman defender Rachel Fletcher's errant clearance fell to forward Kristin Rhyne, who doubled the Cougars' lead with Keeley caught off the goal line.
Penn coach Darren Ambrose admitted after the game that his team "looked tentative, we looked nervous, we looked like we didn't really know each other."
Two days later, however, he was singing a much different tune.
Texas A&M; scored all three of its goals in the first half. The first two came from crosses by midfielder Carrie Berend to midfielder Cristina Echavarry in the seventh and 21st minutes. The third came in the 26th minute, as a corner kick by Laura Probst landed at the feet of Paige Carmichael. Unmarked at the far post, the defender took a quick shot from a sharp angle to score.
It was then that Penn started to wrest control of the game from the Aggies. In the 32nd minute, the Quakers could have been awarded a penalty kick when Cross was taken down in the 18-yard box after receiving a pass from the right wing by sophomore midfielder Erica Messina. Referee Mark Palardy did not call a foul, however, prompting a chorus of boos and other invectives from the Penn fans in attendance.
With just over 30 seconds to go in the first half, the Quakers finally got on the board. Junior midfielder Jenna Linden set Katy Cross free with a through ball 35 yards from goal, and the two-time first-team all-Ivy Leaguer shot it past Aggies goalkeeper Emily DeWoody from 15 yards out.
In the 62nd minute, Penn scored its second goal, with Cross recording an assist this time. She received a pass from classmate and midfielder Devon Sibole, then played the ball to Snyder, who was unmarked in the middle of the six-yard box. With DeWoody stranded, Snyder scored easily.
Penn continued to search for the tying goal, but it never came.
After the game, Ambrose praised his team for its "unbelievable" effort. He acknowledged that his team "gifted" A&M; its first two goals, and described the Aggies as "too good to make mistakes against and get away with it."
But he also described his team's improvement over the course of the weekend as "about 3,000 percent," and said that the team was "very disappointed not to get a result, but we're happy with the effort that we put in."
"We were good enough to win today, and that's important to us as we go through this first part of the season," he said. "Can we play with teams at this level ... the answer is a resounding "yes.'"
Ambrose praised the contributions of the team's freshmen, notably Fletcher, midfielder Jenna Mitby and defender Ashley Hull.
"You learn by getting thrown into the fire," he said. "That's what we talk about, learning -- they're learning."
Cross also got plenty of attention from the Quakers' opponents, and was at times marked by as many as three defenders at once. Carmichael was given a yellow card in the 73rd minute of Sunday's game for quite visibly grabbing a fistful of Cross' jersey as she broke toward goal.
"It just means that I have to work harder than three people instead of one," Cross said of the tight defending. She added that the foul by Carmichael was "a good defensive play -- Robyn [Watson, a Penn senior defender] would have done it if it was on our side."
One of the only things that the two games had in common for the Red and Blue was the praise given to them by the opposing head coaches.
"We knew coming into this that Penn is a first-class program, a top-notch program in the country," College of Charleston head coach Kevin Dempsey said. "Their formation and their quality of players caused a lot of problems for us."
Texas A&M; coach G. Guerrieri got a double dose of the Ivy League this weekend, as the Aggies lost at Princeton, 2-1, on Friday. The Aggies fell to No. 24 in the Soccer America rankings released yesterday afternoon, while the Tigers entered the poll for the first time this season at No. 23.
"If the impression of the nation was that the Ivies were down last year, they are back up where you'd expect them to be this year," Guerrieri said.
Also in attendance Sunday was Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Freddie Mitchell, who posed for a photo with the Aggies players after the game.
He said he was there "just to show support for ladies' soccer, sports in general in Philadelphia."
"They're two good teams and you can see that they put in a lot of work," he said. "I love watching the game, I love watching athletes go at it."
