Senior defenseman Zach Barnett may be a stalwart on the back line, but in Sunday’s 5-0 win over La Salle, he made his mark on the offensive end as well.
In the 23rd minute of a scoreless draw, Barnett bombed a long throw-in into the box and earned his ninth career assist when fellow senior Jason Gorskie finished the goal.
Barnett, who has been the team’s long throw-in specialist since his sophomore year, can’t explain his talent for long-distance tosses.
“I’ve just always had a long throw since I was little, and I’ve just always used it,” Barnett said. “I don’t really know what it comes from.”
Yet the senior back has developed his throw-in range into an attacking weapon. His three assists last year were the most for any back on the team.
Executing long throw-ins depends on having strong core muscles — not strong arms. That explains why the athletic Barnett, who was the captain of his high school basketball team and go-to player on the intrasquad wiffle ball team, has been able to excel.
“He’s just the kind of guy that could probably be successful in whatever sport he picked up,” coach Rudy Fuller said. “He’s agile, he’s athletic, he’s well-balanced and he’s strong.”
Barnett has also honed in on his leadership skills — he was recently voted a team captain, which will be essential if the defensive unit hopes to break the Penn team records set two years ago of seven consecutive shutouts and 11 in a season.
“For the past couple of years, he’s been one of our steadiest performers on the field and one of our hardest-working guys off the field,” Fuller said. “He’s not a rah-rah, in your face, vocal kind of leader. He’s just a competitor that sets an example, sets a standard, and everyone respects the work he puts in and tries to live up to it.”
So far, the Quakers have gotten off on the right foot with two straight clean sheets against Saint Joseph’s and La Salle.
But Barnett is not doing it alone. Three of the four projected starters on the defensive unit, including juniors Thomas Brandt and Jake Levin, played high school club soccer for the Baltimore Casa Mia Bays, which has helped them establish cohesiveness at Penn early on.
Fuller said that Penn has benefitted from those players’ familiarity, camaraderie and experience.
Anchored by the experience and familiarity on the back line, Brandt believes that “the sky’s the limit” for the Penn defense.
“So far it’s a good start,” Barnett said. “We’ve just gotta keep rolling.”
