Has anyone been paying attention to the women's soccer team lately?
It's not like it's been hard - they've played each of their first four games in the friendly confines of Rhodes Field.
And if you have managed to make the trek down to the home of Penn's soccer teams, chances are you witnessed some fireworks. The Quakers have scored 11 goals in four games, including a 6-0 drubbing of Saint Joseph's and a 4-1 win over Robert Morris.
Who? Did anyone know these schools even had women's soccer programs? The NCAA Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) did; at the end of last year, it slotted St. Joe's in at 231, and Robert Morris at 273.
No RPI has been released yet for this year, but rest assured that neither program has been doing any significant climbing recently. The Colonials are off to a blistering 2-4 start, while the Hawks are cruising at 2-2. Their other loss was a 7-0 affair.
Sure, the Penn team is doing fine. They've been scoring goals, playing defense, and they've got an exciting group of young players. But did coach Darren Ambrose learn nothing from his counterpart on the men's side last year?
The men's soccer team put together one of its better seasons in recent years, going 9-4-2 (5-1-1 Ivy) and really hitting its stride in the Ancient Eight season to place second and just barely miss out on the automatic postseason bid.
But none of that mattered to the NCAA selection committee. With a reasonable expectation of gaining entry to the NCAA College Cup, coach Rudy Fuller's Quakers saw their season come to an end on ESPNews when they were snubbed from the tournament. Not only that, the league's third-place team, Brown, was handed an invitation instead.
Why? The answer was clear. The Bears simply had more quality non-conference wins than the Quakers. As heartbreaking as it had been to miss out, it was difficult to argue against the selection committee's rationale.
Brown had knocked off No. 19 Boston University and had lost only once in non-conference play. Penn's best non-conference win last season was against Hartwick, a perennially solid team that had somewhat of a down year. They also compiled a mediocre 4-3-1 record in all of non-league play, with a 2-0 letdown late in the season against American stinging especially.
So if the women's team is to have any hope of making some noise this year, it's now or never. There simply aren't enough quality wins available in the Ivies to make up a strong at-large resume, and nobody wants to count on running the table and winning the league.
But with teams like Robert Morris and St. Joe's on the schedule, is Penn giving itself the opportunities it needs to impress? There is only one team on the Quakers' upcoming schedule even receiving votes for the Top 25, and that's Villanova (Sept. 23).
My suggestion? Win that game, or you'll be twiddling your thumbs in November.
Ilario Huober is a senior international relations major from Syracuse, N.Y., and is former Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is
ihuober@sas.upenn.edu.
