After 45 minutes of play, it appeared that the much-talked about Dartmouth men’s soccer offense had finally met a defense capable of matching it.
Penn fought the Ivy league leaders to a standstill in the first half when the No. 20 Big Green came to Rhodes Field Sunday as the score was just 1-1 at the break.
Good thing Dartmouth didn’t anticipate a walkover.
“I did not ever expect to come down and get an easy game,” stressed Big Green coach Jeff Cook.
But while it wasn’t easy, Dartmouth still came out on top, as the Big Green scored twice in the second half to escape Rhodes with a 3-1 victory. Penn (4-6-3, 0-2-1 Ivy) has yet to win a conference match this season while Dartmouth (8-2-1, 3-0-0) now sits comfortably at the top of the Ivy League table.
The Quakers conceded the first goal to Dartmouth’s Austin Bowers in the 13th minute, but less than 10 minutes later senior midfielder Alex Takakuwa scored his sixth goal of the season to keep the score level at halftime.
In a strong first 10 minutes of the game, Penn gave the Dartmouth forwards precious little to do. Co-Ivy League Player of the Week Lucky Mkosana of Zimbabwe, who scored twice for the Big Green last weekend, was nowhere to be seen until the very end of the first half.
However, it was Dartmouth that would break the tie after halftime. Bryan Giudicelli’s goal came less than four minutes into the second half. Then with only two minutes left, and with the bulk of the Quakers up front looking for the crucial equalizer, Mkosana lived up to his name by finding a gap and racing to the Penn goal to push one past freshman goalkeeper Garon Smith.
Penn coach Rudy Fuller lauded Smith’s performance and acknowledged the goal arose from Penn’s offensive tactics.
“That’s what you get when you throw numbers forward,” he said.
Despite the second-half setback, Fuller praised his team and insisted the result was not demoralizing.
“I thought that we had a pretty good representation of ourselves, and tonight was not a night when we got the result,” he said, describing Dartmouth’s early second half goal as “unfortunate”. “I can’t sit here and say I think it was a bad game for us.”
The Quakers had a few chances to score again, but a series of corners and free kicks came to nothing. Takakuwa acknowledged the team “definitely could have done a better job” with regards to set-pieces.
Nonetheless, Penn kept up the fight enough to worry the Dartmouth coach.
“The longer it was 2-1, the more I thought Penn might be able to get it back up to level terms,” Cook said. “I thought it would take the full 90 minutes to win it, and it proved to be the case.”
