Quakers getting set for Ivy foes

For the women’s soccer team, there is one chink in its defensive armor — set pieces.

Defending free kicks, corners and throw-ins has been one of the Quakers’ biggest obstacles all season. In their only Ivy League loss of the season, the decisive goal came off a corner.

Penn, which sits at third place in the Ivy standings, will need to make sure that this consistent weakness does not hurt it when the Red and Blue take on last-place Yale in New Haven, Conn., Saturday.

“I think we definitely just have had a few mental lapses, where we didn’t have a particular player on the ball wanting to get it out and it cost us games,” senior back Marisa Schoen said.

Free kicks and corner kicks are typically the most difficult to defend since the ball often starts close to the goal.

“You’re under pressure to head a ball,” said coach Darren Ambrose. “Basically you can put a ball within five yards of the goal, which is the most dangerous place.”

The Quakers have given up goals off corner kicks in games against Dayton, Navy and Columbia this year, all matches which resulted in losses.

Senior Sarah Friedman, who arranges the Quakers set pieces, noted the urgency of these plays.

“You have to be alert ... because once the ball goes down you can play it,” Friedman said.

Ambrose prescribed this challenge to a lack of confidence on the field.

“Defending set pieces ... comes down to discipline and attitude,” he said. “It’s about courage, it’s about competitive nature and pride in not wanting to give up a goal.”

According to Ambrose, the increasing emphasis on the importance of set pieces is starting to become an overall trend in the game.

“The game of soccer as we know it ­— as between the eighteen yard boxes — is kind of thrown out the window,” Ambrose said. “It’s not playing the game of soccer so much as lumping the ball down there ... and playing to get a corner so that they can serve the ball in.”

Coming off a double overtime tie against a beatable Dartmouth opponent, Penn can’t afford to let Yale put itself in a position to win by giving up a goal off a restart.

“I think we’ve strengthened our resolve in that area,” Ambrose said. “If we don’t give them up, we don’t lose.”

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