Klitzman | Midseason report card

As the calendar turns from October to November, fall sports are heading into the home stretch. Ironically, the five main fall sports neatly divide into two categories: either sixth place in the Ivy standings — virtually eliminated from title contention (field hockey and both men’s and women’s soccer) or undefeated and in first (football and volleyball).

With two months in the books, here’s a look back at the fall season and some noteworthy statistics, performances and players.

Team with the weirdest trends: Field hockey. As I foresaw in my preseason predictions column, the field hockey team has struggled so far this year. It has gone 4-10 overall, and is just 1-3 in the Ivy League.

But what’s absolutely mind- boggling is that the Quakers have gone 0-7 at Franklin Field this year. And with a contest against No. 1 Princeton next weekend being the only home game remaining, there’s a very good chance the squad will go winless on its home turf.

Not every home game has been a blowout, however. In fact, three of the games have been lost in overtime. Which leads us to another noteable stat: four of the team’s 14 games, or roughly 30 percent, have been decided in overtime, all of them losses. Three of the games (Cornell, Dartmouth and Yale Sunday) make up the team’s Ivy losses. So impressively, the Quakers have yet to lose an Ivy game in regulation.

Bottom Line: Coach Val Cloud must be pulling out her hair with how close her squad is to being undefeated in the League. Teams that completely flew under the radar: both golf teams. The fall golf season isn’t as important as the spring season, but if the Penn golf teams perform as well in April as they did in October, they both might be Ivy champs.

The women competed in five fall tournaments, and finished in the top four in all of them. They averaged a 3.2-place finish out of 12.2 teams per tournament. And most impressively, they set a single-round and a two-round program record at the Spider Invitational held by Richmond.

The men also had a wildly successful season after starting things off poorly with a last-place finish at the Maryland Intercollegiate tournament.

Since that first competition, they finished in average 2.5 place out of an average of 10.4 teams per tournament. The Quakers placed better than the other city teams at the Big 5 Invitational, during which freshman Colin St. Maxens tied a school record at 65. Penn also tied Yale for first at the Ivy Match Play Championships.

Bottom Line: By the end of the spring season, there’s a good chance the greens of the Ivy League Championship tournament will be painted Red and Blue. Player who has really stepped up beyond expectations: cornerback Jonathan Moore. Unlike the previous two items, this one is quite debatable. Though senior Jess Fuccello has absolutely torn up the soccer pitch after returning from injuries, she always had the talent to dominate the Ivy League. Freshman rightside hitter Lauren Martin has played extremely well for volleyball and should be a lock for Ivy Rookie of the Year. But she was one of the biggest recruits Penn has ever gotten, so it’s not that surprising that she has performed so well this season.

Moore, meanwhile, clearly came into the year as the “other” cornerback, overshadowed by preseason All-American Chris Wynn.

But it’s been the 5-foot-10 Missouri City, Texas native who’s been better so far this year (granted Wynn has been hampered with injuries). The senior has three interceptions, which is tied for first in the Ivy League, and his 0.5 picks per game average is tied for 18th in the Football Championship Subdivison. He’s also made some heads-up plays and critical tackles on special teams.

Bottom Line: If any Penn cornerback is going to be a 2009 All-American, it’s going to be Moore.

Zach Klitzman is a senior history major from Bethesda, Md., and is Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is klitzman@dailypennsylvanian.com.

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