It's been 12 years since the Penn women's soccer team last lost to Cornell. And it's been 30 days since the Big Red (1-6-1) last walked away with a victory of any kind.
Yet the Quakers (5-3-1) are still expecting a physical battle in Ithaca, N.Y., on Saturday - although, coach Darren Ambrose was quick to point out, not quite a war.
"I think we're ready," he said. "But the game is played for 90 minutes on the soccer field. It's not played with hand grenades and swords. So we're going to go and play soccer."
Penn has been doing a lot of that lately, scheduling mid-week matches in the past two weeks to supplement its typical weekend slate. The Red and Blue defeated Saint Joseph's, 4-2, under the Rhodes Field lights on Wednesday.
"If you have such a long week [off]," senior captain Natalie Capuano said, "it's kind of drawn out and we just get anxious to play, so it was nice to have something in between to get to play."
Ambrose generally agreed, although his remarks were a bit tempered.
"I think we're getting to the point where we're fit enough, we'll recover in 48 [to] 72 hours and be able to play," he said.
The Big Red don't have much firepower, netting just seven goals in eight games (Penn, by contrast, has 20 in nine). But they are young, with only one senior, and aggressive, collecting a league-high five yellow cards. That could challenge the Quakers, who, according to Ambrose, struggled to keep up with the Hawks' intensity on Wednesday.
And this time, the Quakers have to hit the road after three straight games in Philadelphia - with a four-plus-hour bus ride and overnight lows in the 30s ahead of them.
"Once again, it's just another thing to adjust to," Capuano said.
As the reigning Ivy League Champions and with one conference win under their belts - a 2-0 dismissal of Harvard last Saturday - the Quakers know they'll have a large target on their backs.
"We understand people are playing to beat us right now," Ambrose said.
"When you've got an opportunity to do what this team has an opportunity to do, if you're not ready to play in every Ivy League game, then we don't deserve to win."
- Staff writer Ari Seifter and contributing reporter Victor Rodin contributed reporting to this article.
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