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(10/28/99 9:00am)
After scoring first in seven straight games, the Quakers wached as UMBC opened up a 3-0 first-half lead. They usually explode out of the blocks, but this time the Quakers fell flat on their face. For seven straight games, the Penn men's soccer team had put the first goal on the scoreboard. But that streak died a painful death yesterday, as the University of Maryland-Baltimore County netted three unanswered goals in the first half en route to an easy 3-1 victory over the Quakers at UMBC Soccer Stadium. Of course, fast starts have not been particularly beneficial to the Quakers (3-8-2), as they had compiled just a 3-4 record in their seven-game streak of scoring first. And that included three straight 2-1 losses after squandering a 1-0 lead. "I think a lot of the players on the team really got frustrated," freshman William Lee said. "It seemed like some of the players showed a lack of interest at practices in the past week." Penn came out without much intensity from the opening whistle but held the leash on the potent Retrievers attack for the first twenty minutes. However, the gates soon opened for UMBC's offense, and by halftime the Retrievers had turned the game into a 3-0 rout. Ryan Lampton, Matt Gormley and P.J. Wakefield each netted goals for UMBC (16-0-1), while Ty Engram recorded an assist on each score. Penn coach Rudy Fuller, along with captains Mike O'Connor and Reggie Brown, tried to awaken the lifeless Quakers with a fiery halftime pep talk, one Fuller admits "had really nothing to do with the soccer side of it." "It was about coming ready to play, deciding to compete to win the game, playing with pride and playing with heart," Fuller said. The Quakers responded in the second half, outscoring the Retrievers 1-0. Junior Mike McElwain scored his team-leading fourth goal of the season on a centering pass from freshman William Libby with 27:11 remaining. Libby had been replaced in the starting lineup by freshman Justin Litterelle after missing several practices because of sickness, but the Potomac, Md., native played most of the game. The Quakers defense neutralized the nation's leading scorer, 5'6'' forward Giuliano Celenza. The diminutive UMBC junior was held scoreless for the first time in nine games. But Penn could not stop the No. 12 Retrievers from winning their 10th game in a row. "Marking [Celenza] left some of the other players open that we took for granted," freshman Robb Jankura said. "In particular we weren't very strong in the back," Fuller said. "[John Salvucci], Henry [Chen], William [Lee] and Mike [O'Connor] have put together a lot of good games in a row but we definitely gave away some easy goals." Lampton's goal was off a Gormley header on a throw-in by Engram. Gormley, meanwhile, scored on a deep cross from Wakefield, while Wakefield's goal was an eight-yard chip over O'Connor's head. The Retrievers outshot the Quakers 17-7, while both O'Connor and UMBC goalie Tom Wunk made four saves. UMBC has one regular-season contest remaining, a game on Sunday against Mount St. Mary's to determine the top seed in the Northeast Conference Tournament. The Retrievers set a school record with their 16th victory yesterday. However, in a game that was billed as an intense rivalry because of the connections between UMBC players and Maryland-area Penn players, the Quakers fell short from the start. "We didn't come prepared to play," Fuller said. "That was good enough for the first 20 minutes, but once they scored the first goal, we weren't able to respond." Along with the second half of their game against Columbia earlier this month, the three goals were the most given up by the Quakers in a half. "It was probably one of the worst [halves] of the season," Lee said. Penn was outshot 10-2 and managed just one corner kick in the first 45 minutes. However, the much-improved play of the Quakers in the second half may have righted what went wrong for Penn mentally. "The bus ride home wasn't as talkative as it used to be," Lee said. "This game really turned the game around for us attitude-wise." Penn has now lost four consecutive games after winning three of four earlier this month. "I can't figure out what's going on," Jankura said. "We're a really good team and we can't get it together. I don't know what the deal is."
(10/27/99 9:00am)
The Quakers would get a huge boost from an upset win over Maryland-Baltimore County. Yes, after three league losses, the Ivy League title is out of reach for the Penn men's soccer team. And yes, the midseason momentum the Quakers (3-7-2) gathered after winning three of four games has withered somewhat after three consecutive 2-1 losses. But don't expect Penn to look merely for a token upset against University of Maryland-Baltimore County (15-0-1) today. The game means a lot more than that to the Quakers. In Penn's locker room prior to the season, coach Rudy Fuller posted a ladder of goals with an Ivy League Championship at the top. Although the pinnacle is now out of reach, the Quakers still can scale several rungs of the ladder -- starting with a victory over a favored UMBC team. Penn dominated UMBC in a 3-1 victory last season, but transfers have turned the toothless Retrievers into the No. 20 team in the nation and a contender for an NCAA Tournament spot. UMBC has added forward Giuliano Celenza (from junior college) and midfielders Pat Halter (Old Dominion) and Matt Gormley (Wake Forest) in the last two years, helping turn a last year's 11-7-2 team into an undefeated powerhouse. "I questioned how they were going to gel over the summer," said Penn senior Reggie Brown, who trained with UMBC players several times this summer. "I thought maybe their egos wouldn't mesh together when it came to college. But, as far as I'm concerned, they've answered those questions and more." The Retrievers, winners of nine consecutive games, are led by Celenza and fellow forward Ty Engram. Celenza, who tallied eight points against St. Francis on Sunday, is one goal shy of the UMBC record for a season. The 5'6'' junior has 19 goals and 9 assists on the year. The 6'0'' Engram, meanwhile, has netted 14 goals and dished out six assists in 16 games. "They've got some frontrunners comparable to Old Dominion frontrunners," Fuller said. And that is not a good sign for Penn, as the Quakers could not stop either of the Monarchs' top two scorers, Jimmy Tanner and Michael Tooley, from netting a goal in a 2-1 loss earlier this month. However, UMBC coach Pete Caringi is concerned that the Retrievers' "possession game" might work to Penn's advantage. "I don't know if it matches up well with Penn, because [the Quakers] beat us rather handily last year," Caringi said. "Penn is a very attacking oriented kind of team and they keep possession." Although they have met only two times as teams, many players on both teams are familiar with each other. "I know at least half the team," said Penn sophomore Aaron Cohen, a Rockville, Md., native. "I've played with at least six or seven of them on my team before, whether it's Olympic Development Program or on a club team." Six of Penn's 27 players are from Maryland or Washington, D.C., and all of them have strong ties to UMBC players. "If there's one game on this schedule I don't want to lose, it's this game," Cohen said. In addition, the Quakers will have more fans than usual for a road game, as the families and friends of several of the Maryland and Washington, D.C., natives will be in attendance. "It's a reunion of sorts," Brown said. "I haven't really played in the Maryland area in my four years, so I'm looking forward to it." But, despite the subplots in this game, Penn is looking at this contest as a stepping stone to scale their ladder of goals. One more win would guarantee the Quakers a better record than last year's 4-11-1 mark. And if Penn can run the table in its final five games, it can finish above .500 for only the second time in 10 years. For now, however, the Quakers just hope to do what they need to do to get past that first rung of the ladder -- pull off an upset. And spoiling the Retrievers' undefeated season would certainly constitute an upset.
(10/26/99 9:00am)
One by one, the boats left the starting line on the Charles River, heading upstream on a three-mile course cluttered with six bridges and numerous turns. This was anything but a typical 2,000-meter crew race of simultaneously starting boats on a relatively straight course. But that's what makes the Head of the Charles Regatta, held last weekend on the Charles River between Boston and Cambridge, such a spectacle of a race. "This is pretty much the biggest race of the fall season," Penn heavyweight crew member Keith Sutter said. "This is the race where we saw the most competition that we'll have to compete against in the spring at one race." International crew teams, club teams and most of the top universities in America were represented at the Head of the Charles Regatta, and Penn performed amicably, but not superbly, at the competition. The Quakers' varsity eight crew finished ninth out of 46 boats -- one place behind their finish of a year ago. "We try to get in the top 10 if we can every year," Penn heavyweight crew coach Stan Bergman said. "We'd like to be higher but I think they had a pretty good performance." Penn's time of 15 minutes, 38.29 seconds was 7.08 seconds behind eighth-place Yale but ahead of Ivy League rival Harvard -- a team that finished fifth in 1998. The Quakers' lightweight eight scored a major improvement over last year, rising to 11th place out of 23 teams after a 16th-place finish a year ago. The lightweight boat accomplished this despite a disadvantaged position of starting 20th. Unlike in most races, the boats were started in intervals of 10 to 20 seconds -- not all at once. "After 19 boats [have gone] in front of you, the water gets pretty lumpy," Konopka said. Harvard and Princeton were both penalized one minute for interference in the race, allowing Penn to technically finish ahead both, although the Quakers' time of 16:11.30 was slower than that rowed by the Crimson and the Tigers. Yale and Cornell also finished ahead of Penn. Penn's freshman boat did not repeat its second-place performance from a year ago but still managed to take home a seventh-place finish in a 45-team race. "We need to row together better," said freshman Jon Rosen, who rowed in the eight and is also a Daily Pennsylvanian staff writer. "We each individually have a lot of power, but we have to collectively get more power together." The Quakers freshmen finished ahead of Princeton, Harvard and Brown, but were disappointed about being passed by Yale -- a team that would go on to finish second in the race. "We got walked on by Yale," Rosen said. "That was something we didn't expect and we weren't really happy with it all." Penn's other team in the competition, the second heavyweight boat, finished 30th in the championship eight men's race, ahead of several varsity eights, including Rutgers and St. Joseph's. The Head of the Charles, like many of the fall head races, was three miles long -- more than twice the distance of the standard spring sprint distance of 2,000 meters. "The way we tried to approach it was to maintain a constant speed," Penn heavyweight crew member Greg Jenemann said. "It's so long you can't really have any bursts." In addition, the course was quite a change from the straight, flat Schuylkill River. "There are quite a few bridges you have got to go under and the coxswains have to negotiate a lot of turns," Bergman said. "You have to steer a lot on the course." But the Penn crew will be rowing in a more familiar territory this Saturday in the Head of the Schuylkill Race in Philadelphia. The United States national team and Princeton are expected to be among the Quakers' competition.
(10/22/99 9:00am)
You don't have to know rocket science to excel in soccer. But you can. Just ask Mike McElwain -- a research assistant in the field of astrophysics as well as the leading goal-scorer on Penn's men's soccer team. Recently, McElwain helped Penn Physics Professor David Koerner submit a paper on companions for brown dwarf stars. But, although he has had success in his studies of the sky, the Quakers' junior is better known for his work on the ground at Rhodes Field. After being held scoreless for the first seven games, the York, Pa., native has scored three goals in Penn's last five games to usurp the team scoring lead. Although McElwain had only scored one career goal prior to this year, his recent scoring outburst has not come out of nowhere. "In preseason, [McElwain] was scoring goals in bunches," Penn coach Rudy Fuller said. "I think it's taken him some time to get comfortable and get some confidence and realize he can do that in the real games." It is no coincidence that this season has been a breakthrough one for McElwain. After two years of spot duty, the Quakers junior has benefited from a rededication to the sport this spring. McElwain had gone from being a starter on his Pennsylvania state-finalist Dallastown High School team to a bench player at Penn -- starting only two games prior to this season. Mentally, he had lost some interest. "I just didn't have the passion for it that I did in high school," McElwain said. "It was a different environment, a different team." But McElwain trained hard over the summer with Drexel players Justin Beiber and Reuben Shaffer and came into training camp in August a different player. "I think he's changed in a lot of ways," Penn senior Reggie Brown said. "He came into camp working really hard for his spot. There were a couple guys battling for that forward position but he's kind of put his name on it. He's even a leader on this team now. He starts talking up and getting guys pumped around." As a player, McElwain combines his strength with deceptive speed -- he ran track his senior year at Dallastown -- and ties the package together with tenacity on the field. "He just never stops out there," Penn sophomore Evan Anderson said. "He's got a great motor -- he's always running back and forth, up and down." Possibly the best example of his determination on the field, however, came on a Penn goal that he did not score. Fifteen minutes into the game on October 6 at Lafayette, freshman Robb Jankura scored off a dish from Jason Karageorge, but it was McElwain's perseverance that set up the scoring opportunity. The Quakers had lost the ball on the attack to the Leopards, but the junior forward found a way to get it back. "Mike was the one guy that kept going," Fuller said, "and he was able to get the ball back for us and we ended up getting a goal out of it." But despite his hard-working manner and athletic skills, McElwain lacks one thing that could make him a true star on the field -- a mean streak. "If anything, Mike could stand to be a bit nastier on the field," Fuller said. "He doesn't realize how good a player he is. He doesn't have that cockiness and confidence that would do him good." Cockiness, however, does not fit into the mold of McElwain's personality. He is not out to impress people -- not in soccer and certainly not in his studies. McElwain is concentrating in astrophysics because he enjoys it, not because he desires the genius label of rocket scientist. "I don't do it because people think it's a tough thing to do," McElwain said. With a 3-6-2 record (0-2-1 Ivy League), it seems unlikely that Penn will make the NCAA Tournament in November, but McElwain will still be going places. More specifically, the Quakers junior is heading to Hawaii at the end of November to utilize the Kech Observatory while doing more astrophysics research. In the short term, however, McElwain looks to continue his goal-scoring hot streak tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. The junior will put brown dwarves temporarily on hold as he battles the Brown Bears (8-4, 2-2) on Rhodes Field. The Bears captured the Ivy League title last year, defeating the Quakers 2-0 in the process. Penn outshot Brown on the road, but could not pull off the upset. Brown leads the all-time series 21-19-6.
(10/15/99 9:00am)
the last time Penn met Old Dominion, it was not a pretty game. It might be appropriate for the Penn men's soccer team to change its colors on Saturday from red and blue to black and blue, as the Quakers' game against Old Dominion at Rhodes Field has all the makings of a physical battle. The two teams' only other meeting -- which took place last year -- was physical, highlighted by the ejection of Penn then-senior defender Jared Boggs for a takedown of an Old Dominion player. "They're fairly aggressive," Penn senior Jason Karageorge said. "Maybe kind of dirty." Rhodes Field is also tailor-made for a physical game, as last summer's drought has left the field in a worn-out condition that makes ball control nearly impossible. "It's not conducive to a pretty game," Penn senior Reggie Brown said. "It's not something where you're going to string 10, 15 passes together in the offensive third. It's bang, bang, bang, keep it clean defensively and pick your breaks offensively." And don't forget that Penn has committed an astounding 91 fouls and picked up four yellow cards in the past four games. "If we go in on a hard tackle and we end up getting a piece of the man unintentionally and we get a yellow [card], that's just the way it goes," Karageorge said. But, more than just an aggressive battle, this game will be the most difficult challenge Penn (3-4-2) has had to face this season. The Quakers are on a roll, having won three of their last four games, but they will run into an even hotter Old Dominion team on Saturday. The Monarchs, ranked fifth in the South Atlantic region, have won five games in a row and are 9-2 overall. Old Dominion, unlike Penn, sports a star scoring threat in forward Jimmy Tanner. The 6'1'', 180-pound senior, who has scored 13 goals in the Monarchs' 11 games, is expected to match up with Penn defenders John Salvucci and William Lee. "Jimmy Tanner's a great forward; we've got to keep a close eye on him," Penn coach Rudy Fuller said. "But I feel good about the matchup with either [Salvucci] or William." Old Dominion's success this season has been a result of more than just Tanner's play, however. Freshman midfielder Michael Tooley has also been an offensive threat, scoring seven goals and leading the team with four assists. The defense, meanwhile, has helped the Monarchs' goalies record six shutouts in the team's 11 games. The game, which starts at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow, has the makings of a low-scoring affair, like all of the Quakers' games this season. "We're looking at close to another shutout," Brown said. "It's going to be tight, 1-0, 2-1, 2-0 maybe. I don't expect a big scoring outburst from either team. The field is not conducive to one team breaking away with the play."
(10/13/99 9:00am)
Four members of the Penn men's soccer team played for Rudy Fuller in Bethesda, Md. No, Penn men's soccer coach Rudy Fuller is not a messiah. But sometimes his players cannot help but follow him. While serving as an assistant coach at Georgetown, Fuller coached a Maryland club soccer team, the Bethesda Alliance, on the side. Fuller left his coaching position at Bethesda in 1998 when he became the head coach at Penn, but he had not seen the last of some of his Bethesda players. Aaron Cohen, a wing player for Bethesda, followed Fuller to Penn that first year. And this year three more former Bethesda teammates -- William Libby, Alex Maasry and Niko Vittas -- reunited under their former coach in West Philadelphia. But this was not the same winning tradition they were used to. They came into a rebuilding program, a team that went 4-11-1 last year. The Quakers had not seen a sliver of the success of the Bethesda team that won the Maryland State Championship. But Fuller hoped by recruiting these players, Penn would not settle for second best. And the former Bethesda players knew that with Fuller at the helm, Penn would not settle for second either. "[Fuller]'s not used to losing," Libby said. "A real reason I think he brought us in is our attitude -- that winning mentality." At Bethesda, there was no shortage of the winning mentality. After all, a state championship in the under-16 division and a berth in the Region 1 Semifinals can do that to a team. But the Bethesda squad, playing one or two games a week, was about more than 90 minutes on the playing field. The four Bethesda teammates, who all lived within 20 minutes of each other, became close friends off the field as well. While the bond between these players is strong, they have shown no signs of cliquish exclusivity. "Fortunately, the team overall has bonded without those cliques forming," Fuller said. But the Bethesda players had an advantage coming into Penn that the other freshmen did not -- they knew Fuller's style and he knew how they performed on the field. "At the same time, he hasn't given any of us a preference," Cohen said. "He didn't bring us in and say that we're going to play." And not all of the former Bethesda players have played. Libby starts as a forward and Maasry started in midfield before his injury, but Cohen and Vittas have only come off the bench so far. But do the Bethesda players notice any difference between the Fuller at Penn and the Fuller at Bethesda? "He's a little more determined now because this is his job," Libby said. "His coaching philosophy is the same, though," Vittas said. "Quick soccer, one or two touches." For Vittas, Fuller and his coaching philosophy was more than just a draw to come to Penn. If not for Fuller, the Washington, D.C., native might be playing basketball or tennis instead of soccer. "He was the coach that really got me into the game of soccer," Vittas said. "I was just an athlete who played a bunch of different sports but never really picked soccer as my sport until he was my coach. He just got me really excited about the game, about my potential." Four players from one club team may sound like a lot, but the migration of Bethesda players may not be over. Laurel, Md., native Marty Shaw -- who also played on Fuller's Bethesda Alliance team -- has confirmed that Penn is actively recruiting him. No, Fuller is not a messiah. No, he's not trying to recreate heaven on earth. But he might just be recreating Bethesda along the Schuylkill. · Penn (2-4-2) will take on Philadelphia University (7-3-2) today at 3 p.m. on Rhodes Field. Philadelphia was ranked in the top 25 nationally earlier in the season but recently suffered a loss to Lafayette -- a team Penn beat 2-0 last week -- and tied Bucknell. Senior Nolan Napier and sophomore Everett Palache each have five goals for the school, formerly known as Philadelphia Textile. The Quakers have a 4-12-2 all-time against the Rams.
(10/12/99 9:00am)
Winning two of its last three has made practice more fun for Penn. John Salvucci was fired up. A sophomore defender on the Penn men's soccer team, Salvucci had just nailed a shot past goalie Jeff Groeber from 12 yards out. And now Salvucci, his curly red hair bouncing as he jumped up and down, was screaming and pointing as teammate Mike McElwain congratulated him. So when did this spectacle of celebration happen? Yesterday at practice. The Quakers have won two out of their last three games after starting out 0-3-2. And the wins have made the team a lot looser in practice. "There's a more relaxed atmosphere, which I think is good for the team," Groeber said. "We were worried about getting the win but now we feel like there's a little pressure off." So with the pressure having subsided, the team can enjoy practices -- and the five-on-five scrimmages on a 40-yard field yesterday certainly demonstrated that. The team, however -- still focused on a one-touch game -- had no shortage of trash-talking in the scrimmages. "You can trash-talk with a more kidding-around light-heartedness," Salvucci said. "If you trash-talk when you lose, you take it more to heart." · The Quakers' recent success has been accomplished without the services of two of their opening-day starters. Senior defender Ted Lehman and freshman midfielder Alex Maasry, both injured in practice last month, may miss the remainder of the season. Lehman suffered a concussion after a collision and has not competed since. Because the Holtwood, Pa., native has suffered several concussions in the past, doctors are worried of the long-term effects of another head injury. "We will re-evaluate things when we get more reports back," Lehman said. As of now, the senior is out indefinitely. Maasry, meanwhile, had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee after injuring it in practice two weeks ago. "I cut at a different direction, put weight on my right knee and I came down funny," Maasry said. "It didn't even hurt that bad but I couldn't straighten my leg out." Recovery time is usually six to eight weeks and Maasry suffered his injury six weeks prior to the end of the season. So while there is an outside shot the freshman could return for the last few games of the season, Maasry considers a 1999 return "unlikely." "It's been frustrating because I was playing with a bruised hip and I just returned to full health when I injured my knee," Maasry said. "It's frustrating because I started to feel good again and I got put out for the season." Junior Austin Deng has been the primary replacement for Maasry in the midfield, while freshman William Lee has stepped into Lehman's backfield spot. · Through eight games last year, Penn had scored just three times but the Quakers have nearly tripled their offensive output with eight goals in their first eight games this year. However, the change has not come directly from the returning players; veterans have scored only three times this season. Instead it has been the freshmen providing the offensive punch, as the first-year players have combined for five of the Quakers' eight goals. "Twelve of 27 players on the roster are freshmen," Penn coach Rudy Fuller said. "So, if you're a betting man, pretty good money would be on the freshmen scoring." William Libby has scored twice and is leading the team in scoring, while freshmen Robb Jankura, Nathan Kennedy and Niko Vittas have also netted goals for Penn this season.
(10/07/99 9:00am)
Penn beat Lafayette on goals from Niko Vittas and Robb Jankura. Penn was not supposed to win. And Niko Vittas certainly was not supposed to score. Yet somehow, both happened yesterday as Vittas sealed a 2-0 upset victory for the Quakers men's soccer team over Lafayette with a late-second half goal. Vittas, a Penn freshman, had missed the first three weeks of the season with a broken forearm. A defender and defensive midfielder, the Washington, D.C., native had yet to see action in a college game before yesterday. So when Penn coach Rudy Fuller called Vittas' number with 10 minutes remaining, few anticipated what would happen next: Vittas nailed an 18-yard one-timer past Lafayette goalie Craig Schroeder to give the Quakers a two-goal lead with 6:40 remaining. It was the first time he had touched the ball all season. "It felt great to finally be able to make a contribution in an actual game," Vittas said. The goal by Vittas sealed the game for the Quakers (2-4-2), who withstood pressure from the attacking Leopards (4-4-2) through much of the second half. Lafayette, ranked third in the Mid-Atlantic region, beat Penn 3-0 last season and appeared to be the clear favorite heading into yesterday's game at Metzgar Field. Penn, however, used an aggressive style of play to defeat the patient and defensive-minded Leopards. While both teams took just seven shots in the game, the aggressive Quakers committed 25 fouls in the game. By comparison, Lafayette was whistled for just seven violations. "It was definitely a rough game," Penn forward Eric Mandel said. "The total number of fouls we committed shows our intensity and how we wanted to get the ball from them. The team that plays with more intensity is the one that is going to have more fouls." Penn took the lead 29:19 into the game when freshman Robb Jankura scored from six yards out off a pass from senior Jason Karageorge. "It wasn't a real pretty goal," Jankura said. "But a goal's a goal." Unlike in previous games -- particularly Saturday's game against Columbia where Penn was outscored 3-0 in the second half -- the Quakers did not suffer a post-halftime letdown, despite a barrage of shots from the Leopards. "In the second half, they had to come out of it a bit and attack a bit more than they're used to," Fuller said. "They threw a lot of numbers forward but we dealt with that really well." Goalie Mike O'Connor recorded his second shutout of the season. Although the Penn senior co-captain only had to make three saves, none of them was easy. O'Connor's toughest chance came with a minute remaining when he stopped Lafayette senior Jake Ross' shot from 15 yards out. The Leopards also had several opportunities to tie the game earlier in the second half. A shot by Lafayette senior Leidy Klotz went off the post at the 63-minute mark, while senior Dan Hughes was stuffed in the box after getting a header from teammate Tim Wenger with 8:30 remaining. "We had some good opportunities down the stretch but couldn't get the ball into the net," Lafayette coach Tim Lenahan said. "Penn made the most of its opportunities in the game and that was the difference." For the first time this season, neither of Penn's non-senior forwards started the game. Both sophomore Evan Anderson and junior Mike McElwain came off the bench halfway through the first half and Fuller was pleased by the spark the two added provided. Not coincidentally, just five minutes after the two forwards entered the game, Jankura scored the opening goal of the game. "It was Mike [McElwain's] hard work defensively up front that created the first goal," Fuller said. "We had gotten the ball forward and they had disrupted our attack and had the ball. Mike pressured two of their guys pretty quickly and got it back for us." Fuller, in an effort not to meddle with what has worked, does not intend to start Anderson or McElwain against the University of Philadelphia next Wednesday, preferring to let his bench continue to produce. "What we ask from our reserves is that when they come in, they'll lift our team," Fuller said. And with goals from unlikely sources -- Jankura and Vittas both came off the bench just minutes before scoring their goals -- that's exactly what Penn's reserves did yesterday in pulling off the upset over Lafayette.
(09/29/99 9:00am)
David Bonder scored the game-winning goal as the Quakers beat Soccer 7 rival Temple to earn their first win of the year. The ailment: a five-game winless streak to start the season. The cure: play Temple. For the second consecutive year, the Penn men's soccer team headed into its game against Temple with a zero in the wins column. And for the second consecutive year, the Quakers pulled out a one-goal victory. After knocking off Temple 1-0 last year for win No. 1, the Quakers (1-3-2) did it again yesterday, coming away with a 2-1 win at Temple Stadium. Senior midfielder David Bonder, who did not enter the game until the second half, one-timed the game-winning goal past Temple keeper Drew Moser eight minutes and 24 seconds before the final horn sounded. Senior Reggie Brown had dribbled the ball past midfield and dished to freshman Justin Litterelle, who faked out his defender and slid a pass to a waiting Bonder. However, Bonder's goal would have only tied the game if not for the play of Penn goalie Michael O'Connor. Although O'Connor was only credited with five saves for the day, he singlehandedly kept the score knotted with a diving save of a Temple header. "We really ask him to make one or two big saves a game," Penn coach Rudy Fuller said. "If he pulls that off, we're in really good position to win it." The Quakers dominated Temple (3-4-1) from the opening whistle and nearly scored three times in the first 12 minutes. Senior Jason Karageorge and Litterelle both saw their shots hit the post before converted-forward William Libby's left-footed shot found the net 11:13 into the game. "I got a really good ball out of the back from [Penn defender] John Salvucci," Libby said. "I took a player on in the box, hit a pretty good shot and it went in the goal." But Penn would need more than one goal to come out victorious yesterday. The start of the second half mirrored the start of the first half, except this time it was Temple dominating play from the outset. The Owls finally evened the score 15 minutes into the second half. Temple senior Pat Murphy headed a direct kick from fellow senior Kevin Kelly to tie the score. In past games, Penn has had difficulty maintaining its intensity after surrendering a goal, but the Quakers buckled down following the goal yesterday. "Everyone was harping on getting back into it," O'Connor said. "In the past we kind of had a little letdown but we actually kind of got fired up and got back in the game." Intensity had been Fuller's primary worry following the Quakers' loss to Cornell on Saturday, so the second-year coach had asked his seniors to be more vocal. And that's what happened yesterday afternoon. "We were real vocal," O'Connor said. "The seniors tried to get guys going. And, fortunately, we even had underclassmen talking a lot on the field." The game had a very physical edge to it as the two teams combined for 36 fouls and two yellow cards. Penn dominated the stat sheet with the Quakers outshooting Temple 13-2 in the first half and 29-9 overall. "It's indicative of how sharp we were in the attack on the afternoon," Fuller said. "We had a very good first half on the attack. We were being sharp on the ball, we created a lot of chances and those resulted in the shot totals." Usual offensive threats Libby and Brown combined for nine of the Quakers' 29 shots. Shots were coming from everyone on Penn's team, however; defenders William Lee and Karageorge took four shots each. But Penn insists it did not change its game plan against the Owls. "We got some shots off corner kicks and stuff," Lee said. "That was pretty much the difference. We stuck with the same defensive plan." The Quakers played the game without two of their steady contributors as injuries kept both defender Ted Lehman and midfielder Alex Maasry out of the contest. This win, Penn's first of the season, also marks the first collegiate win for the Quakers freshmen. And they could sense a different attitude in the team yesterday. "For the first time since I've been at Penn, I sensed that, no matter what, we weren't going to lose that game," Libby said. "That was the first time I saw it from everyone on the team." Last year, Brown scored the lone goal against Temple to raise the Quakers' record to 1-5. Penn did not start quite as poorly this year -- two of its first five games ended in ties -- but the Quakers again found themselves winning their first game against the Owls. "It's just a coincidence," O'Connor said. However, as Penn's 17-5-5 all-time record against the Owls shows, a game against its cross-city rivals is usually a good confidence-builder. "We did what we're supposed to do," Fuller said. "We're a talented enough team that we should beat Temple." With a victory over the Owls, Penn curbed a two-game losing streak. But the Quakers must wait until their game against Columbia on Saturday to see whether yesterday's game has cured the Quakers' early season losing syndrome.
(09/27/99 9:00am)
Penn failed to capitalize on an early opporltunity as Cornell dominated play in a 2-0 victory. "You can't stand and watch them shoot!" Penn goalie Michael O'Connor screamed in frustration. Cornell midfielder Nathan Fuller's shot had just flew past the leaping Quakers senior into the upper-left part of the north-side net at Rhodes Field. The goal gave the Big Red a 1-0 lead en route to a 2-0 victory over the Quakers (0-3-2, 0-1-1 Ivy League) at Rhodes Field on Saturday. Penn started the game off with a flurry, controlling the ball for the first six minutes of the game. At one point, Quakers junior Mike McElwain had a clear shot at the net, as Big Red goalie Dan Demaine lay on the ground 10 feet in front of the goal after a shot he trapped was kicked out from underneath him. But McElwain's shot was deflected at the last minute off a Cornell player's chest. That missed opportunity seemed to suck the life out of the Quakers, as Cornell (3-3, 1-1) dominated much of the next half hour, capitalizing on Fuller's goal with 10:28 remaining before halftime. "We didn't capitalize early," Penn sophomore John Salvucci said, "and when things aren't going your way, frustration sets in." Although the sputtering Penn offense was held scoreless for the third time in five games, that frustration was what concerned Penn coach Rudy Fuller most. "Goals are going to come; that's not an issue," Fuller said. "Right now, I think our concern is we haven't had guys try to pick us up when something doesn't go our way." Jason Karageorge attempted to be the pick-me-up guy late in the first half. As Cornell sophomore Oswaldo Rodriguez was being attended to after taking a blow to the head, the Penn senior gathered the team in a huddle for a pep talk. "I basically wanted to put it all in perspective for them and wanted to let them know the game wasn't over," Karageorge said. The Quakers responded well in the final 7:43 before halftime but the intensity took a nosedive when the whistle blew to start the second half. Two minutes and 48 seconds later, Cornell sophomore Ted Papadopoulos scored off a few deflections following a corner kick to give the Big Red a commanding two-goal lead. "We didn't come out as strong as we would have like to the second half," Karageorge said. "They had a lot of big guys in the box, the ball's bouncing around and sort of by chance, it fell at [Papadopoulos'] feet." O'Connor made several impressive stops in the final 30 minutes -- including one against Cornell junior Richard Stimpson on a penalty kick with 51.9 seconds remaining -- to hold the Big Red to two goals. O'Connor ended with 13 saves. Demaine, who has been fighting fellow senior Andrew Barlon for the starting job in front of the net, earned his second consecutive shutout with nine saves on Saturday. The Big Red saw the game against Penn as a must-win after dropping their Ivy League opener to Princeton, 3-1, a week ago. "It was important for us to rebound and get out of the hole that we did dig," Cornell coach Bryan Scales said. "This was a real important match for us." On Penn's side, Fuller customarily gathered the team around for a post-game speech. But the second-year coach followed his speech by taking the seniors aside, urging them to take charge of the team on the field. "You can't expect the freshmen to be the ones picking us up," Fuller said. "It's got to come from the guys who have been through it before. And fortunately for us, we do have a senior class that's been through this type of thing before and knows how to turn things around." The Quakers have played their last two games without one of their senior starters, however. Defender Ted Lehman was hit in the head in practice a week ago and has not been cleared to return to action yet.
(09/22/99 9:00am)
Two hundred forty-eight minutes. That's the amount of time it takes to fly from Philadelphia to Denver. That's about 20 minutes longer than it takes to watch The Ten Commandments and a half-hour longer than Ben-Hur. It's also the length of the Penn men's soccer team's scoring drought. After netting two goals in their season opener, the Quakers' offense appeared poised to break out of the scoring slump that plagued the team all of last year. But two games later, Penn is still searching for its third goal of the season. "A lot of guys have been staying after practice trying to figure out a way to get the goal in the back of the net," senior Reggie Brown said. "We're getting in good chances, good services. It's just the final play that just hasn't been working for us." Luckily for the Quakers, their next opponent, St. Francis (Pa.), should offer the offense a perfect opportunity to make the scoreboard operator earn his keep. Penn (0-1-2) will match up against the Red Flash (1-3) today at 3 p.m. in Loretta, Pa., hoping for a repeat of last year's performance. The Quakers, after scoring just four goals in 11 games, broke out of their offensive slump last October by scoring three goals against St. Francis. Brown had three assists in that game, while sophomore Evan Anderson and junior Mike McElwain, both forwards, each scored a goal in the contest. "I think last year we were just very sharp on the day," Penn coach Rudy Fuller said. "We really got at them and put them under a lot of pressure. They're a team that if you put them under pressure you'll do very well against them." St. Francis has had little success stopping other teams from scoring in 1999; the Red Flash have given up an average of three goals in their four games this season. But St. Francis' high goals-against average is more a result of style of play than defensive deficiency. "What I admire about St. Francis is they try and play the game," Fuller said. "I expect the ball to move a bit more on the ground than against Dartmouth. I do expect a different game." The Quakers have been working in practice the past two days on playing a different game. Yesterday the team concentrated on crosses and goal-scoring drills in an effort to take advantage of scoring opportunities. If Sunday's game was any indication, the offensive work this week should pay off today. After working last week on being more creative offensively, Penn had 27 shots against Dartmouth after totaling 16 in its first two games. "McElwain, Evan [Anderson] and [freshman] Billy Libby tried some different things in the game," Brown said. "That's what opened up more chances for us and that's why we had so many shots." The Quakers will face a very young St. Francis team today, as the Red Flash sports only one senior. The two leading St. Francis goal scorers are freshman Mike Giardetti and sophomore Matt Rosenfeld, while the Red Flash have another freshman, Joe Alianiello, guarding the net. But the youthful St. Francis team can still pull off an upset against Penn by playing to its strengths. "They're a very defensively sound team and are very good at drawing their entire team back and pulling things off and counterattacking," Penn senior Jason Karageorge said. Because the Quakers enter the game as the favorite, however, they can afford to attack to open the game. "I know that we're gonna come out and be really offensive minded," Penn goalie Michael O'Connor said. "We want to try to get a bunch of goals." Two goals would constitute a bunch for the Quakers and St. Francis has given up at least two goals in each of its four games this season. Penn could not ask for a more ideal opportunity to end its 248-minute scoring dry spell.
(09/21/99 9:00am)
Hurricane Floyd hit most of campus hard last Thursday, but for the Penn women's cross country team, the storm seemed little more than a spring shower when compared to the blow the squad suffered on Friday. Sophomore Susie Cook, the team's prized recruit from a year ago, officially quit the team on that day -- just before the team left to compete in the Delaware Invitational on Saturday. "Thursday was that storm and Friday she came in and quit," Penn coach Betty Costanza said. "She kind of left this group high and dry." Penn recovered from the loss of one of its top runners to place second behind Delaware in the Newark, Del., meet. Still, the unexpected loss of Cook has left the team shocked. "I think [the other Quakers runners] are disappointed. I think they're bewildered," Costanza said. "I'm hoping that they're angry. I'm angry that she would turn her back and walk away." Cook had told Penn assistant coach Cricket Batz-Shaklee last Wednesday that she was considering leaving the team. She did not finalize her decision, however, until Friday. Cook told the coaching staff of her decision but did not announce it to the team personally. "The coaches informed us," freshman Lauren Avallone said. "[Cook] hasn't come up to me but I know she has a lot of friends on the team so I'm sure she has talked to them." Costanza said that Cook left the team to pursue other activities on campus, but the Haddonfield, N.J., native would not elaborate. "It was a personal decision," Cook said. So, left without a runner who finished 15th in the Delaware Invitational last year, Penn came up just short, finishing 16 points behind Delaware. Halfway through the race, the Quakers were in position to steal first place. Junior captain Meredith Rossner, senior Stephanie Bell and sophomore Katie Henderson were all in the top 10. But only Rossner -- who finished seventh in 19 minutes, 41 seconds -- would stay there. "We had a nice pack for the first mile and a half and given the competition we should have been able to hold it," Costanza said. "But our pack kind of broke up." Bell, still recovering from bronchitis that kept her out of competition last week, ended up 14th. But the Quakers senior was 40 seconds behind Rossner. Henderson finished 22nd in 20:46, but she was passed by two Penn freshmen -- Avallone and Mackenzie Tepel -- in the last half-mile. "Katie and I have different running styles," Avallone said. "I tend to usually go out a little slower and pick it up at the end. She goes out a little faster and doesn't have as much left at the end." Avallone finished 17th in 20:33, while Tepel's time of 20:41 was good enough for 20th place. West Chester's Kelly Walton won the race in 18:38. Eleven teams competed on Saturday but only the six Division I schools were scored. Towson State took third with 72 points while Maryland-Baltimore County grabbed fourth place. The Quakers -- who finished last in their first meet, the Lafayette Invitational -- showed much improvement this weekend. But runners like Henderson and Bell are still running slower times than they had at this point last year. "We did better [at Delaware]," Henderson said. "It was an improvement over last week but we have a long way to go." The un-Cooked Quakers will be in action again next Saturday at the George Bertelsman Invitational.
(09/20/99 9:00am)
Dartmouth senior Michael Lewis races downfield on a breakaway opportunity ten minutes into the second half. Penn goalie Michael O'Connor comes out to meet Lewis. The Big Green forward shoots. And misses, high and to the left of O'Connor. Forty-six minutes later, in the first overtime, Penn forward Eric Mandel is the recipient of a cross pass right in front of the goal. The Quakers freshman heads the ball toward the right post, but Dartmouth goalie Ben Gebre-Medhin knocks it away at the last second. These were probably the two best opportunities for Penn and Dartmouth to score yesterday, but no one could find the back of the net. While the two teams combined for 46 shots, the contest ended in a scoreless tie. It's not as if a low-scoring game came as a surprise to either team, however. Penn (0-1-2, 0-0-1 Ivy League) had scored just 11 goals in its past 18 games, while Dartmouth (0-2-1, 0-0-1) lost its two previous games this season by 1-0 scores. So 120 minutes of scoreless soccer was not exactly an unrealistic outcome. "Dartmouth is a very defensively oriented team," Penn coach Rudy Fuller said. "It's tough to score on a team like Dartmouth because they play to not give up goals and hope to get one somewhere along the way." Although the scoreboard did not show it, Penn outplayed Dartmouth for much of the day, as the Quakers outshot the Big Green 27-19. More importantly, however, Penn had a 13-5 advantage in corner kicks. "Any time you're getting the amount of corners that we got," Fuller said, "it says something about your attack because you're playing the game in their end." But Dartmouth, a team that plays games with defense as its first, second and third priority, did not break under the constant Quakers pressure. Gebre-Medhin, who had 16 saves in only his third start in goal, was brilliant. The Big Green sophomore repelled every kind of shot Penn gave him, shining brightest when it mattered most under the constant Quakers heat at the end of the second overtime. "I was so close to my first shutout, I wasn't going to let it slip away," Gebre-Medhin said. "No crap goals were going to go in." Penn goalie O'Connor put in a stellar performance as well, making nine saves despite injuring his hip for the second weekend in a row. O'Connor, who did not play in overtime last week against James Madison because of a hip injury, went down after a collision with a Dartmouth player in the second half. Yesterday, however, the senior co-captain remained in the game. "It definitely wasn't as severe as last time, but it bothered me a little bit," O'Connor said. "I was a little upset because that was the second time a guy didn't really play the ball, he played me." O'Connor may be credited with an unassisted shutout, but his defense deserves a good portion of the credit. Led vocally and physically on the field by senior Jason Karageorge, the Quakers defenders took much of the pressure off O'Connor, preventing striking opportunities for Dartmouth. The Big Green have had trouble finishing in their first two games, but the Penn defense made it difficult for Dartmouth to even get a clear shot yesterday. "I think in our first couple games we created a lot of chances, but [yesterday] our final pass was very poor," Dartmouth coach Fran O'Leary said. "What really hurt us wasn't so much bad finishing, but the final ball to create an opportunity." Penn, on the other hand, had the chances -- just not the conversions. John Salvucci shot high off a Reggie Brown corner in the first half. A open header by David Bonder went wide right. Consecutive corners near the end of the second half result in a missed shot by Eric Mandel and a pick out of the air by Gebre-Medhin. "Obviously, the offense is frustrated," O'Connor said. "They worked a hundred percent but unfortunately didn't get one in the back of the net."
(09/14/99 9:00am)
Yale and Brown appear to be the top teams in the Ivy League this year. Yale forward Jac Gould versus Brown goalie Matt Cross. Last year's Ivy League Player of the Year versus last year's All-Ivy goalie. Thirty-one career goals versus just two league goals given up last season. It's a classic matchup of offense versus defense. And it's also a matchup that might decide the winner of the Ivy League men's soccer title. This year Brown and Yale, along with darkhorse Princeton, are the teams to beat among the Ivies. And it will likely be a matchup of Yale's offense versus Brown's defense that decides who wins the title. Last year Brown captured its second straight league crown and the Bears return nine of their 11 starters and all five of their All-Ivy players. But the Elis, who won six straight games to close out last season, will also have most of their stars back. In fact, five of Yale's top six scorers will suit up again this season. But, although the two teams may end up with similar records, they will be anything but similar on the field. Brown, like the rest of the Ancient Eight, plays a slower, more technical game, taking fewer shots and allowing fewer goals. Yale, meanwhile, utilizes its speed to get off as many shots as possible. Yale's 24 league goals last season were 11 more than any other Ivy League team. And this contrast has given Yale's opponents fits in the past. "We stack up better against Brown," Penn senior Reggie Brown said. "We don't have the team speed Yale has. They've exploited us the last two years. At the same time I think we have what it takes to combat this year. We have more experience in the back and we have players that can combat speed a little better." If the Quakers defense, which is anchored by goalie Mike O'Connor, can find a way to shut down Gould and the rest of Yale's offense, Penn could be a surprise contender for the title. But, more likely, Brown and Yale's top competition will come from Princeton. "When you're talking about the front-runners in the Ivy League, the first team that comes out of your mind is Brown," Penn coach Rudy Fuller said. "But based on late-season form of last year, Yale and Princeton were probably the two top teams in the Ivy League." The Tigers may have lost their gel, however, as midfielder Chris Halupka was one of seven seniors lost by Princeton to graduation. But the Tigers always seem to find a way to position themselves near the top of the league standings. Still, Brown and Yale should be the teams residing at the top of the Ivy League standings. And the order of the two will likely depend on a battle of offense versus defense.
(09/03/99 9:00am)
The temperature at game time was 96 degrees, and Veterans Stadium had not cooled off much by the time Doug Glanville stepped to the plate in the seventh inning. But even the insufferable July heat would not flare the temper of the Phillies center fielder. Home plate umpire Greg Bonin had just punched Glanville out on a two-out, 3-2 pitch that the Penn graduate lunged away from to avoid getting hit. It appeared the ball was inside. But Glanville didn't argue. He merely paused a second, walked back to the dugout to get his glove and trotted back out to center field. But that kind of reaction by Glanville comes as no surprise to his teammates. The former Ivy Leaguer doesn't make a scene. He just plays. "We need people like that in this game," Phillies pitcher Paul Byrd said. "We have the image of being nasty sailors -- cursing and grabbing ourselves and spitting -- and he's not like that at all." No, Glanville is not a typical baseball player. He is one of only four Ivy Leaguers in the majors, along with Dartmouth alumni Brad Ausmus and Mike Remlinger, currently with the Detroit Tigers and Atlanta Braves, respectively, and former Penn football and baseball star Mark DeRosa, who played for the Braves this season before being sent down to Triple-A Richmond. And while Glanville's baseball judgment is seldom questioned, he has had a difficult time shedding the Ivy League stereotype of being a "smart" player without an exceptional amount of talent. "There's an image [of an Ivy Leaguer]," Glanville said. "I think coming into the minors, it's more of a stigma. In the minor leagues, people just want to kind of follow the rules -- not to be too cerebral about things -- so I thought it was a hindrance in some ways from a relationship standpoint." Glanville has had to endure more ire than other Ivy Leaguers, however, because of an incident stemming back to his junior year at Penn. Several scouts were in attendance to see the Penn center fielder in action against Temple, but Glanville was nowhere to be found on the playing field. The reason for Glanville's absence? He had to study for an Engineering exam. "I told [Penn coach Bob Seddon] ahead of time," Glanville said. "But there was a little bit of mix-up to communicate that to some of the scouts in the area, so a lot of scouts came to the game and I wasn't there. So I developed this reputation of not really having the desire." But, after being selected 12th overall by the Chicago Cubs in the 1991 Major League Baseball Amateur Draft after his junior year, Glanville showed that he did indeed have the desire to play pro baseball. Even then, though, Glanville made sure he would be able to complete his education when he signed with the Cubs. The Teaneck, N.J., native graduated from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in 1992. So far, however, Glanville hasn't had to utilize his Penn degree. After a steady climb up the Cubs' minor league ladder, Glanville made his major league debut on June 8, 1996. He went 0-for-4 that night and finished the year with a .241 average in 49 games, but went on to hit .300 as the Cubs' starting center fielder in 1997. Glanville's Chicago career would not last, however. He was sent to Philadelphia in a trade for second baseman Mickey Morandini prior to last season. Glanville's homecoming was a success for half a season, as he received serious All-Star consideration after hitting .313 with 67 runs scored in the first half. The success did not last, however, as he hit only .238 in his last 73 games to finish the year at .279. "There's always a lot of off-the-field issues that can become distractions if you don't have control over it," Glanville said. "I thought I let it get out of hand last year and I think it took me away from the game at some point and wore on me." But Glanville has shown no signs of a second-half slide this season. In fact, Glanville has hit .339 since the All-Star break; he hit .321 in the first half of the season. Despite missing several games with a bruised knee last week, he ranks second in the National League with 168 hits, while batting at a .327 clip, good for sixth. He credits his rebound to better handling of off-field distractions. "[Phillies hitting instructor] Hal McRae said to me, 'It's like a cake,'" Glanville said. "The cake is your performance. All the icing and the candles is just stuff people do to decorate it, but if you don't have the cake, nobody wants to give you anything." Although Glanville's first-half statistics this season were actually better than his numbers from a year ago, there was little talk of a berth in this year's All-Star game. "It's been quieter this year," Glanville said. "We've got a lot of guys on this team doing well, and the novelty's definitely worn off of me being the local guy coming back home." This is not to say, though, that Glanville is out of touch with his Penn past. "[Being a Penn alumnus] comes up a lot because the family of the Penn graduates is pretty thick," Glanville said. "Everywhere you go, there's a lot of people saying, 'Hey Penn. Go Quakers.'" And Byrd, whose locker flanks Glanville's in the Phillies' clubhouse, has little trouble seeing Penn's Red and Blue in the Phillies' center fielder. "He's intelligent in the way he plays," Byrd said. "He's well-spoken on and off the field. You can tell that he's been well-educated. It transfers into his game." The door swings both ways for Glanville, however, as his baseball background managed to seep into his academic endeavors while at Penn. The Engineering student's final project was a feasibility study concerning building a new baseball stadium at the corner of 30th and Market streets. Now, ironically, Glanville is back in Philadelphia. And the Phillies are considering several sites for a new ballpark -- although they, too, have discounted the 30th and Market location. Glanville is watching the new ballpark situation closely -- and not just from a player's standpoint. "I'd love to be involved with that project at some point," Glanville said. "Hopefully, I'll be still playing when they do build it." Although it looks as if Glanville will be the Phillies center fielder well into the 21st century, the 6'2'' righty always has his Penn degree to fall back on. But, for now, the Engineering graduate's job is to engineer runs.
(09/03/99 9:00am)
The Palestra will be the place to be for Pennsylvania wrestling fans on December 11. On that date, Penn and Penn State will wrestle for Keystone State supremacy on the mats of Penn's historic arena. The Quakers and Nittany Lions have reached a verbal agreement on a two-year home-and-home series. This December, Penn State will visit the Palestra, and Penn will return the favor with a date at the Nittany Lions' Bryce Jordan Center in 2000. "At this point we've got a two-year verbal agreement," Penn coach Roger Reina said. "I would hope that we'll establish a traditional competition and I believe the competition will be very intense -- state bragging rights." The last time Penn wrestled against Penn State was in 1997, when the Nittany Lions mauled the Quakers, 28-6, at the National Wrestling Coaches Association National Team Dual Meet Championships. · The Quakers will return to the National Duals for the third time in four years at Penn State's Bryce Jordan Center on January 22-23. Penn received an at-large bid to the elite 16-team field. The top six teams from the 1999 National Duals automatically qualified, as did Division II Champion Pittsburgh-Johnston, Division III Champion Wartburg and NAIA Champion Northern Montana. Penn was given the first of the remaining seven at-large bids based on the strength of its returning starters. "Being selected number one out of the remaining teams at-large was quite an honor," Quakers senior Mike Fickell said. "Again, this gives us another opportunity to be in the spotlight and for Penn wrestling to be more nationally recognized." Penn State, Cornell, 1999 National Duals Champion Oklahoma State and Iowa are among the other teams that will compete in the 16-team tournament at University Park, Pa. · The Quakers are looking for a new assistant wrestling coach this summer to replace Jon McGovern. McGovern joined Brian Dolph and Mike Friedman as assistants to Reina last season, but the Central College graduate will be focusing on training for the 2000 Summer Olympics this season. Reina expects a new coach to be hired later this summer. · With the addition of Penn State and a return to the National Duals, Penn's schedule looks especially challenging for the 1999-2000 season. The Quakers, who finished last season ranked 12th in the NWCA poll, will face five top-twenty teams. Aside from No. 10 Penn State and EIWA rivals No. 15 Cornell and No. 17 Lehigh, Big Ten heavyweights No. 9 Michigan and No. 14 Purdue are the top teams on Penn's full slate. The Quakers finished 10-0-2 last season, earning ties with Cornell and No. 8 Central Michigan in the process.
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Jon Searles, a two-sport recruit, opted to pitch in the Pirates organization. Professional baseball or college? Jonathan Searles will do both. On June 18, the incoming freshman signed a contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates that will allow him to attend Penn full-time for two years and play professional baseball in the summer. Under this contract, Searles will report to the Pirates on or around May 15 in each of the next two years, allowing him to finish both his fall and spring semesters at Penn each year. Searles must report to spring training on time starting in 2002, however -- meaning he will not be able to attend Penn in the spring. "It's pretty unusual," Pirates scout Dana Brown said. "When you get a kid, draft him and sign him and he's going to go to college, normally he goes to college in the fall only. But because he's an Ivy League student and he's been accepted into the Wharton School of Business, we decided to go ahead and let him go to school as a full-time student." As part of the contract, Searles will receive a $130,000 signing bonus and the Pirates will contribute $140,000 to his education. The total of $270,000 is equivalent to the typical signing bonus for a fourth-round draft pick. Searles was chosen by the Pirates in the eighth round. "The Pirates will do anything to sign their first eight or 10 draft choices because they don't have money for free agency," Penn baseball coach Bob Seddon said. "Unfortunately for us, he was drafted by the wrong organization." Searles was originally recruited to play football exclusively for the Quakers, but the Huntington, N.Y., native reconsidered his future in baseball after being discovered by Major League scouts. On April 19, former scout Larry Izzo saw Searles pitch. Three weeks later, Major League Scouting Bureau's Pat Shortt officially scouted the Huntington High School pitcher. And one week after that, 10 major league scouts -- as well as Seddon -- paid Searles a visit. Because the Major League First Year Player Draft was fast approaching and Searles had planned to play football at an Ivy League school, most clubs assumed they could not sign the 6'3'', 195-pound pitcher. "I was aware of his situation," Brown said. "Some of the other scouts sort of backed off because of it, but what I tried to do was get a feel for what the kid wanted to do, and when I talked to Jonathan, it sounded to me like he really wanted to play baseball." And Searles decided that if baseball was the direction he was going to move in, he would play for the Pirates -- not Penn. "If I'm going to play baseball," Searles said, "I'm going to play at the highest level possible." Searles and his uncle, Joe Carrizzo, put in an estimated 100 hours of research to determine whether he should sign with the Pirates. "This was well researched," Carrizzo said. "This was not a rash decision." The decision does not just affect Searles with regard to baseball, however. Under Ivy League rules, if an athlete signs a professional contract in one sport, he is declared ineligible in every other collegiate sport. So, unlike former Texas running back Ricky Williams -- who played baseball in the Phillies' minor league system -- Searles will not be eligible to play football at Penn. "I'm sure I'll miss football when I'm watching the games," Searles said. "But, obviously, some people say I have a future in baseball." According to Carrizzo, the Penn football coaches have been supportive of Searles' decision. Searles reported to the Pirates' Rookie League team in Bradenton, Fla., on June 23. Since then, he has appeared in eight games, all out of the bullpen. He is currently 1-0 with a 4.15 ERA. He has struck out nine batters, while walking nine and allowing six earned runs in 13 innings. Opponents have hit .264 against Searles. The right-handed pitcher will likely report to Bradenton again next May, possibly moving up to A- or AA-ball by 2001. Brown, who has been a major league scout for six years, believes Searles has a bright major league future ahead of him with three quality pitches. "I think he's probably going to end up with a plus breaking ball, an above-average changeup and at least an average to above-average fastball," Brown said. Athletically, Seddon believes in the pitcher's future, but the Penn coach is not convinced that the contract Searles signed will be as beneficial academically as hoped. "He'll get four semesters, five semesters, but then what?" Seddon said. "When is he ever going to get back again because at that point he has to go to winter ball, he has to go to full summer ball, he may have to go to fall ball. If he does well, he'll never make it back unless he gets cut." His next two years are pretty well scripted, but Searles is still uncertain whether he will play winter baseball or attend school during the fall of 2001. "I'll have three summers of baseball under my belt," Searles said. "Maybe then I'll know where I stand." But Searles knows where he stands for now -- a pitcher in the summer, a student the rest of the year.
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Penn becomes the sixth school in the Ivy League to sponsor a women's golf program. On July 26, Penn announced that the women's golf team will begin its first year of varsity competition this fall. The Quakers, who competed unofficially in the Princeton Invitational and Ivy League tournaments last spring, will now be eligible to compete for the league championship. Francis Vaughn, who has coached the men's golf team and the non-varsity women athletes since 1996, will serve as women's golf coach. In 1998, Vaughn led the men to their first league championship in 88 years. Penn becomes the sixth Ivy League school to support a women's golf team. Only Cornell and Columbia are without women's programs. The Quakers' varsity status was made possible by $250,000 donations to the program by both The Judge John C. Pappas Family Charitable Foundation, Inc., and the Thomas Anthony Pappas Family Charitable Foundation. Although the Quakers lost captain Lindsay Stern to graduation, Penn will return senior Natasha Miller, juniors Jen Schraut and Karen Pearlman and sophomore Victoria Entine, while incoming freshman Stacy Kress will be looked upon to solidify the team. "Kress carries a handicap of four at Woodholme Country Club, has extensive tournament experience and will help the other ladies improve just by being around her," Vaughn said in a statement. Unofficially, Penn finished sixth in the Ivy Championship tournament at Bethpage Golf Club in Long Island, N.Y. -- 135 strokes behind fifth-place Harvard. Schraut was the top Quakers finisher with a 36-hole total of 200. Meanwhile, Entine shot a 214, Stern a 216 and Pearlman a 272. Penn is the first Ivy League school to add a women's golf program since the inauguration of the women's Ivy Championship in 1997. And now the Quakers will have a trophy to play for, as Arthur Brennan, a Wharton alumnus, and his wife Katharine donated the Arthur A. Brennan Jr. Family Trophy for the Women's Ivy League Championship.
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The Penn's women's tennis team will add an internationally ranked athlete to its roster this spring. And with probably their most difficult schedule ever, the Quakers sure picked a good time to secure the talents of freshman Alice Pirsu. Pirsu, a member of the Romanian National Cup team, has competed in such prestigious events as the U.S. Open, the French Open and Wimbledon. The Bucharest, Romania, native has been ranked as high as 24th in the junior world rankings and 207th in the WTA rankings. And now, after four years on the ITF/WTA tour, Pirsu will try to storm her way through four years in the Ivy League. Pirsu is eligible to compete in the NCAA because she played in the pro tournaments as an amateur and never made money as a professional. "I think she's going to make a huge impact," senior co-captain Elana Gold said. "I don't think there's anyone that can beat her in the Ivy League." Pirsu will not be eligible to compete for the Quakers until next semester, meaning she will miss the fall season. But the highly-touted freshman has watched from the sidelines since entering Penn last January. Still, Pirsu did not let her tennis game deteriorate while she sat out of competitions, as she awed the rest of the Quakers with her court skills. "When you play her, you think, 'Oh, that's a good shot -- she's not going to get to it,'" sophomore Louani Bascara said. "But she fires it back even harder and closer to the line." Pirsu is expected to step into one of the top two singles spots on the team, where she and three-time first team All-Ivy honoree Anastasia Pozdniakova will give the Quakers possibly the most deadly 1-2 punch in the league. And a 1-2 punch is just what Penn will need with its much-intensified schedule this season. Last year, the Quakers finished with a 19-2 record en route to a No. 46 national ranking, but this year the weaker teams which appeared on Penn's '99 schedule, like Loyola Marymount and Georgetown, have been replaced by the likes of Virginia, Clemson and Fresno State -- not to mention 1999 NCAA Champion Stanford. "We will be tested," coach Michael Dowd said. "We're not going to come away with another 19-2 year. If we do, we'll be in the top 10 in the country." Penn's schedule will include nine teams in the top 65 of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's final rankings from last season. In addition, the Quakers will compete in the prestigious Georgia Invitational in January and the Princeton Invitational in February. But for many of the Quakers, the real season begins on April 1, when Penn plays its first Ivy foe. "[Our schedule] is going to give us a lot of opportunities to get a higher ranking and to be more prepared for the Ivy season," Gold said. "I'd rather go 2-10 in preseason and do better in the Ivies than go 10-2 with a fluffier schedule." Last year, the Quakers finished 6-1 in the Ivy League, losing only to eventual champion Harvard, 8-1. But Penn lost four of its top players to graduation in May. Junior Jill Mazza, a transfer from Rochester, will join Pirsu in trying to offset the losses of the graduated seniors. Mazza, who compiled a 54-11 record in her two seasons at Rochester, reached the finals of the Division III singles tournament last spring, where she lost 7-5, 6-2 to Amherst's Neeley Steinburg. "She was a superstar at Rochester, but she wasn't being challenged on the tennis courts," Dowd said. "She wanted to see how far she could take her game, and going to a Division I school with a national-level schedule, she could do that." In addition to Pirsu and Mazza, Penn will gain the services of freshman Niki DeCou, who is ranked seventh in the middle states region. "Niki's got a lot of athletic ability," Dowd said. "If she puts in summer work and works on her game, she could be competing for a spot." The Quakers open their fall schedule on September 20 at the Clay Court Championships, while the Georgia Invitational kickstarts their spring schedule on January 21.
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How important is summer league baseball for Penn coach Bob Seddon's players? "It's so important," Seddon said, "that if the players don't play in the summer, they probably won't be playing on the team in the spring." Apparently, the members of the team were not deterred by the Quakers' disappointing 9-28 record last season, as Seddon estimated that 80 percent of his players played in strong summer leagues, and the rest were playing baseball in some fashion. But the Penn star this summer was Jim Mullen, who played third base for the Delaware Valley Gulls in the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League. Mullen, who hit .311 for the Quakers as a sophomore in '99, led the league with a .426 average in 115 at-bats. "Overall, the pitching is better in the league because every guy throws in the high 80s, sometimes low 90s," said Penn's Ralph Vasami, who played catcher for the ACBL New York Generals. "In the Ivy League the guys don't have that kind of velocity, but they'll be craftier." Mullen dealt well with the tougher pitching -- as well as with the use of live lumber. Like almost all summer baseball leagues, the ACBL is different from college baseball in that players use wooden, not aluminum, bats in games. Vasami also fared well, hitting .345 with 5 doubles and 18 RBIs for the first-place Generals. "The more you swing wood, the more you become adjusted, and then it's the same game as metal," Seddon said. "When you swing metal all the time and then go to wood, it's a different world because you just break the bat off with your hands on the inside pitch." But Mullen has thrived swinging wood. In 1998, he hit .400 in 35 at-bats for the Gulls; this year he led the Gulls in nine offensive categories, including on-base percentage (.525) and slugging percentage (.583). Most impressively, however, he cut down his strikeouts from a team-leading 27 in 135 at-bats at Penn to only eight in 115 at-bats for the Gulls. Mullen, who was leading the league with a .418 at the all-star break, was selected as the starting third baseman for the Wolff Division in the ACBL All-Star game. Wolff won, 4-3, and Mullen contributed a hit. "There's no pressure for that," Mullen said in July of his chase for the hitting title. "It'll be nice if it happens, but it's not what I'm going after. I'm just trying to improve every day, and if it happens, it's a bonus." In addition to playing in 36 of the Gulls' 40 games, the 6'0'', 190-lb. junior also played for Narberth, Pa., in the Penndel league -- throw in practices and it means Mullen was playing baseball virtually every day this summer. "He's a very dedicated kid," Seddon said. While Mullen and Vasami were the only two Quakers to play in the ACBL this summer, they were certainly not the only members of the Penn squad to play in a summer league. One particular bright spot for Penn this summer was tri-captain Kevin McCabe, who hit .416 with 25 RBIs, two homers and 12 steals in 29 games for the Ambler Rebels of the Perkionen Valley (Pa.) Twilight League. Mullen's Delaware Valley team narrowly missed making the ACBL playoffs, as the N.J. Colts swept the Gulls in a season-ending double-header to steal the final playoff berth. "I think the league is more centered around player development and exposure," Mullen said. "But we're trying to win the league. That's the secondary goal." The ACBL has had its share of future pro baseball players on its teams' rosters -- including Craig Biggio, Walt Weiss, Frank Viola, Eric Young and Pete Harnisch. But the ACBL's level of competition pales in comparison with other summer leagues. "The most prestigious leagues in the country are, No. 1, the Cape Cod League, and, No. 2, the Alaskan League," Seddon said. "To get into the Cape Cod or Alaskan, it's a very difficult invite -- usually by scouts that control it." No Penn players have been invited to either of those leagues this summer, but Doug Glanville and Mark DeRosa are among the Cape Cod League alumni. Members of this year's Quakers squad were playing in leagues around the country, however. Junior Randy Ferrell played in Maryland, while junior Matt Hepler played outside of Chicago. Transfer first baseman Michael Bland played for the San Francisco Seals, while senior Jeremy McDowell played in West Chester, Pa. Although they played in different places this summer, the Quakers will all reap the benefits of having used lumber once it's time to pick up the livelier aluminum bats next spring. "Summer league baseball is very, very important for the collegiate career of an athlete," Seddon said. "It gives him more confidence and prepares him for the next season, particularly if he didn't get a lot of at bats that spring." Mullen certainly did get a lot of at-bats last spring for Penn; he led the Quakers with 135. But his ACBL success will no doubt give him increased confidence for next year.
