The year wasn't supposed to go this way for the Yale men's soccer team.
One year removed from an Ivy League co-championship and an NCAA Tournament berth, the Elis returned nine starters and 14 players in all.
But with this year's Ivy League season more than half over, the Elis are a shadow of their old selves. After four Ivy matches, they have garnered only one win. As a result, their hopes of repeating as champions are essentially destroyed.
On top of that, they are coming into tomorrow's match against Penn riding a five-game losing streak.
"It's a bit of a surprise," Penn coach Rudy Fuller said. "Last year, they were co-champions, and they've got a lot of the same personnel."
But, as anyone who has been watching Ivy League soccer will tell you, recent results often don't have a lot of bearing on what will happen on the next match day.
"We're not naive enough to think they're a poor team," Fuller said. "It's at their place, . so we expect a difficult environment and a challenging game."
But playing challenging games has not been Yale's problem - it's finishing them off that's the problem. Each of its three Ivy losses has been by one goal. Against Harvard, Yale was winning - against Cornell and Dartmouth, the winning goal came within the last 25 minutes of the game.
Senior defender Andy Howard, though unaware of these facts, still predicts a similarly close game against Penn.
"I don't know how [Yale is] doing," Howard admitted. "It's an Ivy League game on the road. Every Ivy League game is a battle. . If I had to make a prediction, [I would say] this will be a one-goal game."
That could pose a challenge for the Quakers' back line, which lost Josh Baugh to a broken leg and possibly Howard to a pulled right quad.
And Yale does have offensive weaponry to threaten Penn's undermanned defense. Three of the Ivy League's leading scorers - Gage Hills (5), James Stewart (4) and Alex Munns (4) - will suit up for the home team at Reese Stadium looking to rid Yale of its recent malaise.
From Penn's perspective, it's important that the slim difference falls in their favor. The Quakers are currently tied for first in the league with Harvard at nine points. Lurking behind them are Brown and Dartmouth, both of whom are sitting on seven points.
Only grabbing one point from a draw would leave Penn vulnerable to the Crimson, who have a weak schedule down the stretch. Meanwhile, a loss could put Penn as low as fourth place with only two games to play.
The bottom line: Penn needs a good performance, or its tournament hopes could be in jeopardy.
"Right now, the only thing that matters to this team is Yale - going into New Haven, staying on top of the league and putting pressure on everyone else," Howard said.
