Coming into Friday's game, the Penn women's soccer team was 0-10 all time against Villanova.
Unfortunately for the Quakers, they still haven't beaten their rival from the Main Line.
Despite leading, 2-0, after 47 minutes, Penn gave up three late goals to fall, 3-2, to the Wildcats in the second game of the Penn Invitational at Rhodes Field. In the day's earlier match, East Carolina came back to beat Hofstra, 2-1.
Sophomore Sarah Friedman started things off for the Quakers (1-2), scoring the game's first goal on a free kick 32nd minute. The "odd" goal, as Penn coach Darren Ambrose described it, was only awarded once Villanova goalkeeper Molly Williams backed into the net after catching the shot.
Senior captain Natalie Capuano followed her teammate's goal with her third tally of the season - tying her total from last year. She scored two minutes into the second half on Penn's only corner kick.
But around the 60-minute mark, things started to unravel for the Quakers. Villanova's Kaitlin Ryan bulleted a shot on the ground to the lower far post, right past Penn goalkeeper Sara Rose's outstretched fingertips.
Penn still lead for the next 15 minutes, but in just a five-minute span, Villanova (6-0) took over the lead for good. Off one of the Wildcats' seven corner kicks, Justine Wollner put a head on a ball that had been bounced around by several players. Her shot sailed to the far post, near the spot of Ryan's goal.
Five-plus minutes later, at 79:26, Wollner got a breakaway and chipped the ball over a charging Rose.
Ambrose attributed the second-half collapse to Villanova's conditioning.
"They're fitter than us," he said. "We were very opportunistic in the first 60 minutes, but we just didn't have a full 90 minutes in us."
The Quakers play their second and final game of the Penn Invitational against ECU on Sunday.
