Junior defender Oliver Pratt receives the ball from a teammate in a game against Columbia on Sep. 30.
Credit: Darren SaitoPenn men’s soccer's quest for a three-peat atop the Ivy League regular season standings is underway with a 1-0 league-opening win against Columbia.
On a cloudy Saturday evening, Penn (6-1-1, 1-0 Ivy) bested Columbia (0-7, 0-1). The bright lights of Rhodes Field illuminated the mist falling onto the players and field, creating slippery playing conditions throughout the evening — so much so that Columbia and Penn players were both sent sliding toward the Ott Center.
When asked about the conditions, coach Brian Gill explained that “it’s certainly a concern” but that "they tried to not overthink too much of that.”
Despite the rain, the fans were in full force, some of the loudest being the elementary schoolers who walked out with the team during player introductions. Cheering on the players, they proudly chanted, “Let’s go UPenn!”
By the end of the first half, the score remained even at 0-0, but Penn was considerably more dominant with the ball. Aside from one or two Columbia half-chances, Penn was swift — at almost every opportunity — to win the ball off the Columbia dribblers, limiting the Lions' chances to score. Columbia, who has only scored once across its previous six games, did not get off a shot attempt in the first half.
“You can look at the team and say that it’s really just this back four and a goalkeeper, but it’s really much more than that. The responsibility is shared over the entire team when they’re out there,” Gill said. “I think about so many plays that were made by central midfielders, outside midfielders, and our front two. The effort that they put in to put the opposition under pressure[made] play predictable for us and [made our] jobs a little bit easier in the backfield.”
With 11 shots in the first half, Penn had no shortage of quality chances. The attempts included a strike from sophomore midfielder Jack-Ryan Jeremiah that glanced the bottom of the crossbar and just barely bounced in front of the goal line. Columbia goalkeeper Alexander O’Brien had to make a handful of quality saves to preserve the first-half clean sheet. Senior forward Stas Korzeniowski did well to drive into the defense and then cut away to get shots off, but the final product fell short.
Korzeniowski, who was drafted with the No. 53 pick in the 2023 Major League Soccer Draft, felt the pressure every time he entered the enemy territory. The Lions swarmed him each time he got possession, applying tight, physical pressure. Korzenioswki was not the only one to feel this; senior defender Ben Do had a Lions player jump on his back and knock him to the grass.
Penn had two good looks early in the second half, with back-to-back well placed free kicks from Jeremiah. One header attempt missed wide right while the other sailed over the crossbar.
But the score finally came after 52 minutes of play. Freshman forward Romeo Dahlen floated a kick that soared over O’Brien’s head, scoring the first and only goal of the night. This is only Dahlen’s third game of his collegiate career, and his first goal. He was assisted by junior midfielder Patrick Cayelli, who notably had both assists in last week’s game at Villanova.
“It feels awesome,” Dahlen said of his goal. “I just trust myself and my abilities in that moment. And it’s just instincts that took over to finish.”
Down by a score, Columbia tried to claw their way back into the matchup, but the Penn defense stifled the Lions on every attack. The Lions finally got a shot attempt off, but it came after 85 minutes and was easily saved by sophomore goalkeeper Phillip Falcon III.
One Ancient Eight team down, six more to go. The road to claim the top of the conference throne may have started tonight, but there is still much work to be done over the course of the season.
“We’ve had a great past couple years, and so we know we have a target on our backs. We’re fine with that. We’re gonna take every game, game-by-game, step-by-step, we know that we can beat every team that comes here or we go and travel to,” Dahlen said.
Next week, Penn will attempt to carry its momentum into a road matchup at Harvard.
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