Going into Saturday’s game, the No. 15 Penn men’s soccer team knew it would be tested by a Yale team hungry for a home Ivy win.
In what came to be a tale of two halves, the Quakers were able to get their fourth conference victory of the season, defeating Yale 2-0 to earn their fifth straight shutout.
The first half saw a fairly even match, with both teams left scoreless. The Bulldogs (2-10-1, 1-3-0 Ivy) held Penn (11-2-0, 4-0-0) to just two shots.
“I think in the first half, they just came out kind of fired up,” said forward Stephen Baker, who led the Quakers with six shots. “It was their first Ivy League home game — they had a pretty good crowd that was all fired up — and we just had to get used to playing on turf, the speed of play and their tendencies.”
The Red and Blue earned the win in the second half and took their game to a new level, bombarding the Bulldogs with 14 shots and scoring two goals to put the game away.
“I think in the second half we made a concerted effort to really try and make runs in behind their back four, play goals in behind their back four and really stretch them out a bit,” coach Rudy Fuller said.
The real turning point of the game came at the 67:20 mark, when Yale goalie Bobby Thalman was given a red card for tripping in the penalty area. Penn forward/midfielder Christian Barreiro put the resulting penalty shot into the net, giving Penn a 1-0 lead.
Penn forward/midfielder Loukas Tasigianis would later score in the 78th minute off a Barreiro assist, giving the Quakers their second and final goal, and putting the game out of reach.
After having a full week to prepare for Yale, the Quakers will have a much quicker turnaround this week, playing home games against Penn State on Wednesday and Brown this Saturday.
For both of those games, one thing Fuller hopes to emulate from Yale is the large fan base.
“We’ve got two really big games this week and we would love to have a great crowd there to support the boys,” he said. “We’re in the midst of a special season.”
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