Women's soccer on the attack for big Yale match

Penn women’s soccer may have lost its dynamic duo. But in its wake, a fab five has emerged.

In Saturday’s bout with Yale (7-4-2, 3-1 Ivy) at Rhodes Field, the Penn women’s soccer team (11-2-0, 3-1) will bring a balanced offensive attack, featuring five players who have scored four times or more this season.

They materialized as an offensive force partially due to early season injuries to offensive threats Ursula Lopez-Palm and Kerry Scalora.

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“Our team is really stacked in the sense that when one person gets injured we have a lot of people to fill that space,” Lopez-Palm said.

In the absence of Scalora and Lopez-Palm, the Quakers have seen senior Marin McDermott take on a strong leading role on offense, as well as the emergence of freshmen offensive threats Megan York, Callan Parra and Clara Midgley and sophomore Kathryn Barth.

However, when the Red and Blue play Yale, the Bulldogs will not only have to stop the Quakers’ fab five, but also Lopez-Palm, who will take the field in her second game back from injury. This gives the Quakers an additional edge that coach Darren Ambrose does not underestimate.

“Her presence as a senior, as a kid who plays her heart out every single minute she’s on the field — it raises everybody’s level,” Ambrose said.

Last year, the Quakers shut out the Bulldogs, 1-0, which proved to be a decisive game as fellow title contenders Princeton and Columbia lost that same day. The Quakers would go on to win the Ivy League title.

This year, the Red and Blue are faced with a similar scenario, with Penn and Yale locked in a second-place tie with just one loss apiece, while Harvard’s record is only marred by a tie to last-place Cornell.

The importance of the game on Saturday is not lost on Lopez-Palm, the leading scorer on last year’s Ivy League championship team.

“[Penn and Yale are] both tied for second, so this game is really going to dictate how the rest of our season goes,” Lopez-Palm said. “If we win, it’s just going to be that much better.”

Yale’s top scorers, senior Enma Mullo and freshman Melissa Gavin, will compete against a Quakers defense that is ranked third in the nation in shutout percentage (.769) and has only conceded six goals in 13 games this season.

The game may come down to a defensive battle, as each of the last seven matchups between Penn and the Bulldogs has been decided by no more than one goal.

However, history will have to be put aside Saturday. Ambrose de-emphasized getting “overwhelmed with all of the big picture.”

“We don’t talk about winning Ivy League championships. We’re still not talking about it,” Ambrose said.

“We set goals every two weeks, and that’s all we focus on.”

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