
There was a moment, perhaps no more than two seconds long, when Penn's fate seemed to literally hang in the balance during its 4-1 win over Robert Morris on Sunday at Rhodes Field.
In the 55th minute, the Quakers were clinging to a 1-0 lead that by all accounts should have been larger. Following a Colonials corner kick, a Penn defender deflected a shot from Robert Morris defender Heather Niznik and sent it fluttering on a strange, loopy trajectory into the air and towards the upper left corner of the goal.
Goalkeeper Cailly Carroll's outstretched hands couldn't reach it, and the game was tied.
The same team that was outshot 9-2 in the first half and had been routed 6-0 by the Quakers last year had now pulled even. But the Colonials' reverie wouldn't last even a minute.
Forty-six seconds later, sophomore goal machine Jessica Fuccello took the lead back on a shot from short-range. The stage was set after captain Natalie Capuano and freshman Kaitlin Campbell led a Quakers charge downfield - or, as coach Darren Ambrose put it, "willed the ball through three or four kids." Capuano was incensed by what the scoreboard had read.
"It was like reality set in," she said. "Like 'Now we're tied, they could potentially win this game.' But we just pushed through it."
While they created plenty of scoring opportunities - they had 19 shots on goal for the game - around the goal there was frequently tentativeness where there should have been tenacity. Ambrose could tell that the Quakers weren't themselves for the first 55 minutes of the contest.
Assistant coach Pete Pososki "and I were talking on the sidelines," Ambrose said. "I just said, 'It's gonna take a lucky deflection or something like that and we're gonna find ourselves in a game.' Two minutes later it's in the goal."
However, Penn adjusted after this wake-up call, and the Quakers didn't stop once they took back the lead. Seven minutes after Fuccello's goal, freshman Sarah Friedman scored the first of her career on a wide open shot from ten yards out. Sophomore Jess Rothenheber wasn't far behind, putting in another goal just 40 seconds later on an assist from Fuccello.
But despite the spark that led to three goals in eight minutes, Penn may have gotten it together by just stepping back and taking a deep breath.
"We just settled down," Fuccello said. "I think it was really frantic in the first half so we just calmed down and we played our game."
If one thing can be taken from the Quakers' last contest, it's that, with the proper motivation, they may be able to do big things on offense. But they probably hope that next time it doesn't take a knuckleball of a goal to provide it.
Fuccello's early score lifts Penn
On offense, the Quakers could hardly catch a break. On defense, they caught the only two that mattered.
Following a corner kick, Jessica Fuccello staked Penn to a 1-0 lead with a first-half goal. The Quakers barely got close after that.
But Saint Louis did no better, seeing a pair of rockets from close range turned away by the crossbar after halftime, and the Billikens dropped a 1-0 decision at Rhodes Field on Sunday.
It was the season opener for both squads.
Style points to sophomore goalkeeper Cailly Carroll for getting a leaping hand on the second of those two shots. The ball probably would have gone in otherwise. As it was, it bounced straight down and was corralled by Carroll without a fight. She played all 90 minutes and probably has a solid grip on the goalie position for now. She had three saves.
Fuccello scored Penn's first goal of the year on a corner kick that was deflected from Kaitlin Campbell to Fuccello and into the back of the net.
The Billikens had advanced to the NCAA Tournament each of the past two seasons.
"We are not yet fit to go 90 minutes as a club, so we needed to manage this game when we were still able," head coach Darren Ambrose said.
- Andrew Scurria
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