The last two times the Penn women's soccer team has played Columbia, it ended in disappointment.
With the Lions visiting Rhodes Field on Saturday, the Quakers hoped to avoid another letdown.
This time, they handled it masterfully.
The Quakers continued their recent streak of hot play, dispatching Columbia, 3-0. The win was the team's fourth straight, and third straight in Ivy League play. Penn remains tied with Princeton atop the Ancient Eight.
The offensive onslaught was led by senior midfielder Lauren Bome. She tallied three points in the game, including a spectacular goal with 15:33 remaining.
Bome collected the ball from 30 yards out, turned, and drilled it over the outstretched fingertips of Columbia goalkeeper Allison Vespa.
"I was just putting it on frame," Bome said of her goal. "I was going to play it back, but the [defender] overplayed me, so I just turned. They always tell me to shoot and I don't really shoot very often, so I thought 'what the heck.'"
However, the Penn team that won the game at the end was not the same one that began it. Despite the Quakers' overwhelming control of possession, the score was locked at zero going into halftime. Unfortunately for Penn, the time of possession advantage did not lead to scoring opportunities.
"We started slow," Penn coach Darren Ambrose said. "At halftime, there were two sides to us. One was, we're not getting it done and we know we are better than that. The second was, look, if we play the way we are capable of playing, we can get two or three goals."
The Quakers (5-4-1, 3-0-0 Ivy) came out in the second half playing the way they had felt they could. The result? Two or three goals. Well, three, to be exact.
The action began just 7:26 into the half, when senior forward Katy Cross knifed into the box from the right side. As she was about to turn and put it on net, she was tripped by Vespa. The resulting penalty kick was slotted home easily by junior defender Robin Watson.
Penalty kicks "are mostly about confidence," Watson said after the game. "You've just got to go up there and either you psych yourself out or you don't; you've just got to go up there with confidence."
Junior Carolyn Cross also scored a goal for the Quakers, who generated chance after chance in the second half from the right side of the field.
On defense, the Penn's game plan was to shut down Columbia's star forward, Shannon Munoz. The freshman came into the game leading the Lions (5-5, 0-3) with 10 points, good for fifth in the Ivy League.
"Shannon is a great player," Ambrose said. "Columbia are a very hard working team. We figured out what they were trying to do to us in the first half, and they were almost successful with it. But in the second half, we just made sure we paid attention to the kind of runs that she was making. When we did that, we finally took that away from her."
"I think in the second half we really came out prepared to step up and win the ball," said Watson, who was a thorn in Munoz's side all day. "We pressured her so she didn't have so much time."
As for the visible transformation that the Quakers underwent at halftime, Ambrose attributes that to their increased desire and willingness to play together.
"And we showed up," Ambrose said. "And that, again, I think, is a little experience, a little desire, and I give a lot of credit to our upperclassmen."
The Quakers will be back in action tomorrow, when they put their winning streak on the line at neighboring Drexel.
Columbia 0 0 -- 0PENN 0 3 -- 3
Goals: 1. Watson (P) 52:26 (penalty kick); 2. Cross, Carolyn (P) 58:13 (Bome); 3. Bome (P) 74:26 (unassisted)
