Wet, wild - and for the Penn men's soccer team, a win as good as any other.
"We got the result, and that's all that matters," junior midfielder Alex Grendi said.
Despite a sloppy first-half, an early deficit and pouring rain, the Quakers topped American 2-1 last night at Rhodes Field.
But from the kickoff up until midway through the first half, Penn (4-4-2) had trouble getting things going.
"It started off really fast-paced," Grendi said.
That gave the Red and Blue trouble. Instead of one team having continued possession, the early part of the game was marked by a series of fights for loose balls and headers.
Senior defender Keith Vereb said "the effort was there" but the Quakers just weren't in the right position to come up with those balls.
Eventually the Eagles capitalized on the slight edge in possession they held. In the 17th minute, defender Cameron Petty broke into the box and chipped in the through pass from Colin Zizzi.
It was only after being down 1-0 that Penn was able to slow down the game and begin to dominate possession and scoring opportunities.
With just seconds to go in the first half, a Tobi Olopade run down the left flank led to a cross from Derek Hobson into the box. Forward Richard Frank volleyed it on goal, and the keeper's save and subsequent rebound went right to Loukas Tasigianis, who nailed it in for the equalizer.
Coach Rudy Fuller credits experience with the team's ability to recover.
"In the past, when we were down and having trouble moving the ball, the guys might not have bounced back," Fuller said. "Today they figured it out and turned the game around."
From there on in, it was all Penn.
"Once we got the ball on the ground and started to connect, we made it happen," Grendi said.
The bench was a key factor in that. Frank, Olopade, and Omid Shokoufandeh combined for three shots on goal, one goal, and two assists.
It was Shokoufandeh who had the assist when Derek Hobson scored the go-ahead goal in the 64th minute.
"We're a deep team, and the reserves coming off the bench have been proving that lately," Fuller said.
"In every game there's some combination of players that's going to work for us. Sometimes it's going to work from the start and other times we'll have to change some stuff up. Tonight was like that."
As the rain came down and lightning threatened an early end to the match, the Eagles brought everything they had to earn a late tie. But the Quakers stood firm and defended the onslaught well.
"These are the types of games that we have to be able to pull out down the stretch," Vereb said. "It'll give us confidence moving forward."
With Dartmouth right around the corner, they'll have to keep it.
