Lone goal ends Penn women's soccer's slide

It has been a bit of an up-and-down season thus far for Penn women’s soccer.

However, the Red and Blue were firing on all cylinders in Monday night’s game against Loyola (Md.).

After two consecutive conference losses, the Quakers (4-3-2, 0-2) were finally able to bounce back with exceptionally strong defensive and offensive play in their 1-0 victory over the Greyhounds (4-8-1).

With less than 20 seconds to go in the first half, the Red and the Blue capitalized on one of their 17 corner kicks. Junior midfielder Erin Mikolai sent a powerful cross into the middle of the box where freshman forward Juliana Provini flicked it across the line, scoring after junior back Caroline Dwyer’s header rebounded off the post.

The one goal held up thanks to strong defensive play throughout the 90 minutes.

It was Provini’s first goal as a Quaker, and she was ecstatic to contribute to the team’s win.

“It feels really good,” she said. “I have been working so hard in preseason and training, and it’s nice to finally get some solid minutes and finish.”

The defensive back line was equally excited to shut out a tough competitor. Junior back Shannon Hennessy led the Quaker defense, which held Loyola to just two shots in the game.

Junior goalkeeper Kalijah Terilli remained relatively untested, playing all 90 minutes and only needing to make one save.

The defense was especially efficient with its tackling, something Hennessy said the team has been working hard on in practice.

“We are definitely happy with the way we played,” Hennessy said. “I think we really got after it tackling this game.”

Coach Darren Ambrose echoed his praise of the defensive effort in his analysis of the Quakers’ offensive play as well.

“We created a ton of chances,” he said. “We got in behind them a bunch of times. I think arguably we could’ve had four or five goals. And I think it’s the first game this year we could say we could’ve had four or five goals. They did exactly what we asked.”

With 15 shots on goal, the Quakers did have plenty of chances, and coach Ambrose says that the next step for the team is capitalizing on these opportunities.

Despite these missed chances, Ambrose was still very pleased with the young team’s emotion and effort.

“I think after Friday [a 3-2 loss to Cornell], we asked them really what the season was about. And the seniors talked about competing and playing with a little more emotion. I thought we really competed well. I thought there was an edge.”

There was most definitely an edge to the Quakers’ attitude, which resulted in a high level of physicality throughout the game. With an abundance of fouls and several players going down, Ambrose said it was important for his young team to recognize the difference between playing physical and being guilty of “stupid fouls.”

Nevertheless, Provini agreed that the victory was a confidence booster going in to a tough weekend of matches.

“We want two wins,” she said.

The Quakers will get their chance to start a win streak at home against Columbia and Navy over the weekend.

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