Often, the best memory for athletes to have is a very short one. Penn men’s soccer knows this better than anyone.
The Quakers (5-2-3, 1-1-1 Ivy) suffered a 5-3 defeat on Saturday afternoon to No. 17 Cornell (7-3, 3-0 Ivy). Just over 72 hours later, Penn took the short trip to Drexel and outlasted the Dragons (5-6-2, 2-3-1 Coastal) in a gutsy 1-0 shutout victory. The Quakers had four different goal scorers across the two games, punctuated by senior defender Joaquin Niehenke’s 58th-minute goal — the first of his collegiate career — against Drexel.
The Quakers currently sit in a three-way tie for third place in the Ivy League, alongside Princeton and Dartmouth. Penn has already defeated the Big Green by a score of 1-0, and will close their season by visiting Princeton in what is shaping up to be a monumental matchup.
“We want to really try to do everything we possibly can to extend our season. We feel like the talent in this group is there. It would be a shame if we’re thinking that we can’t do more,” coach Brian Gill said, reflecting on his team’s season thus far.
Penn collapses against Cornell
By looking at only the final score, one would likely never guess that Penn led 2-0 at halftime in their Saturday afternoon showdown against Cornell.
“We knew that [Cornell] was going to come out with their own response, and so we wanted to handle that,” junior forward Romeo Dahlen said.
Handle it, they did not.
The Big Red opened the floodgates on their home turf, pouring on five goals in the second half and ultimately taking down the Quakers 5-3 in a stunning turn of events. The five Cornell tallies mark the highest goal total the Quakers have surrendered since Gill took over coaching duties for the 2018 season.
“They’re a highly threatening attacking team, and they started to put balls into dangerous areas,” Gill said of the Big Red. “They wound up making the plays … and they got the better of us.”
The two squads wasted no time getting the tempo set, with each side recording three shots apiece by the match’s 10th minute. The back-and-forth affair was nearly on the verge of settling down before a 30th-minute offsides from Cornell got Penn attacking up the field. Penn maintained possession in the offensive half for nearly five minutes and was rewarded with a penalty kick opportunity when senior midfielder Jack-Ryan Jeremiah was taken down in the box. Jeremiah picked his spot on Cornell goalkeeper Filip Versterre, converting the 35th-minute penalty kick and giving Penn a 1-0 lead.
With the first-half lead, the Quakers did not take their foot off the gas. Less than two minutes later, junior midfielder Michael Howard had a golden opportunity in the box that Versterre just barely deflected into the crossbar and out of play. On the ensuing corner, junior forward Marco Bottene sent a powerful header on net that was again deflected out for a corner. On Penn’s third try, Bottene tapped a heel pass to Howard, who fired it into the net to give Penn a 2-0 lead that they would take into the half.
“[In the first half] we had some really fun moments and some high-level play, and they were rewarded for their efforts with two really good goals,” Gill said.
The second half would not be as rewarding.
Cornell came out of the half buzzing, and quickly turned the tide on the Quakers. A sustained spell of offensive pressure from the Big Red resulted in a partial breakaway shot that rang off the crossbar. Yet, senior goalkeeper Phillip Falcon III could do nothing but watch as the rebound was tapped into the net to put Cornell on the board in the 55th minute.
The game was tied two minutes later, as Cornell forward Blake Donahue would force a shot surrounded by six Quakers defenders that grazed Falcon III’s fingertips and sailed into the top left corner. And then, Donahue would give Cornell the lead just four minutes later on a shot to the bottom right, capping off a run of three Cornell goals in six minutes and 20 seconds.
“I think some of the plays that resulted in goals against us, maybe we could have affected the play a little and didn’t need to result in goals, but on the day it didn’t go our way,” Gill said.
The Quakers, suddenly down a goal, were not to be counted out quite yet. Merely three minutes after falling behind, a quickly formed offensive play would see Dahlen net his much-awaited first goal of the season. The shot, which just barely curved around a defender and Versterre’s outstretched hands, tied the game back up at 3-3.
“Obviously it felt really good to get that goal,” Dahlen explained, “The ball sat up really nicely for me … it was kind of instinctual to just go for the shot there.”
Dahlen’s goal stopped the bleeding temporarily, but it couldn’t provide a further spark to Penn’s gameplay on either side of the ball. Cornell took control for the rest of the game, preventing Penn from registering another shot on goal. The Big Red were content dribbling the ball around for the better part of 15 minutes, until an ill-timed foul by Penn set them up at the top of the box. The shot was lasered home with just over 10 minutes to go, giving Cornell a 4-3 lead.
Penn never found anything close to an answer. Their best chance was on a free kick from about 25 yards out, but the Big Red defense handled the attempted pass easily. Cornell would add an insurance goal with two minutes left, and the Quakers would leave Berman Field with their first loss in Ivy play.
Quakers survive Dragons’ heat
Following their second-half thrashing at the hands of Cornell, Dahlen and the Quakers knew they needed a quick turnaround for the Battle of 33rd Street. “We’ve got to show that we’re not going to let that past game affect us too much,” Dahlen said. “We’re going to take that as a lesson and move forward.”
The lesson was taught and promptly received by Penn’s backline, which stood strong against a resilient Drexel attack in a 1-0 shutout victory for Penn on Tuesday evening at Vidas Field. Falcon III had a rebound performance with five saves (four of which were in the second half), and Niehenke’s first collegiate goal would prove to be the game-winner. The game also marked the first time Penn men’s soccer has won the Battle of 33rd Street since 2021.
Unlike their last game, this first half did not open with speed, but rather intense physicality that helped the game live up to its nickname. Drexel had a little offensive pressure around the midway point of the first 45 minutes, with two corner kicks in succession, but Falcon III turned away both headers and kept the game scoreless. The half was heavy on shots, but very few found their way on target as the teams struggled towards a scoreless halftime.
The opening of the second half was again marked by slow, physical gameplay that saw no statistic of any kind marked for the first 10 minutes of play. However, the box score also cannot capture the immense physical toll that the game was taking on those playing it.
The first excitement of the half came 11 minutes in, as Falcon III made a diving save on a low shot coming off of a quick near-breakaway. Penn promptly turned up the field, setting up their presence in the box quickly. The ball would squirt free to Niehenke, who booted a powerful shot into the back of the net to give Penn a 1-0 lead.
The Dragons were seemingly ignited by this goal, and forced the Quakers to play on their heels. Drexel forced three corner kicks over the next two minutes, but Falcon III and the Penn defense held strong to keep their one-goal lead intact.
After that initial post-goal flurry of activity, the game would again lull into a slower, physical game. It would remain as such until the final whistle blew, marking a Penn victory in an impressive rebound performance.
“At this stage of the season, it’s important to create perspective for the players … that there’s only so much time left. The season goes quickly, and if we don’t take advantage of every opportunity, … the season can sometimes just fall out. At the moment, we still have a fair amount of opportunities in front of us,” Gill said.
The Quakers will look to pick up a much-desired Ivy win in their next game on Saturday, Oct. 17 in a showdown with the Brown Bears (5-4-2, 0-2-1 Ivy) at Rhodes Field.
