Dan McQuade: Fully loaded

Darren Ambrose has already done a tremendous job turning around the Penn women's soccer team.

This year, however, Ambrose can continue to take the team to new heights.

The Quakers were a good team before he came to West Philadelphia. In 1999, they finished 13-4-1, losing in the first round of the NCAA Tournament to James Madison.

But Ambrose did something no other Penn coach had done before him -- he guided the Quakers to a victory over Harvard.

That might not sound too important, but Harvard was a thorn in the side of the Quakers for almost the entire history of the program.

In 1999, the Quakers finished 6-1 in the Ivy League, with the lone loss coming to Harvard in a 2-1 heartbreaker.

Penn led the Crimson, 1-0, at the half, but allowed two goals in the second to fall. It was the same way the Quakers lost in 1998, and the way they would lose in 2000 as well.

Last season, however, Katy Cross scored three goals in a 3-1 victory in Boston, giving the Quakers a share of their first-ever Ivy League title.

"If the players can come in and Darren stays here, I think they're doing everything right," Penn senior Heather Taylor said. "They're headed in exactly the right direction, right to the top."

"Staying here" is the important factor in the recent success of the program.

Ambrose was Penn's third coach in three years when he came here, but, with the stability he's brought to the program, the Quakers are ready to vault into the upper echelon of not just the Ivy League but the NCAA.

"When I came out my freshman year, people were just looking for us to beat Harvard," Taylor said. "From that freshman year... to senior year, we obviously want to make the NCAAs, we want to get past the first round.

"Our goals have improved tremendously. We're reaching a lot further than we ever thought we could."

The Red and Blue should be looking to do a lot more than just beat Harvard this year. In fact, taking down Harvard should be just a step on a ladder of success.

Penn is loaded this year. The Quakers graduated only one starter, and Ambrose's recruiting class was ranked 24th in the nation and sixth in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Putting that in perspective, last year's class was ranked ninth in the region.

That was a squad with a trio of offensive firepower that netted a combined 72 points -- Cross with 34 points, Rachelle Snyder with 23 and Devon Sibole with 15.

Last year, the season ended with a 2-0 loss to Villanova in the first round of the NCAA College Cup. It was a disappointing end to a 13-2-3 season.

This season, and in future seasons, the Quakers can set their sights even higher than the Ivy League, or just the first round of the NCAAs. Cross, Snyder and Sibole all return to spearhead the attack, and the 10 new recruits can only help the Quakers this year.

"If they can keep improving and keep getting better players," Taylor said. "We'll be top-10, I'd say, in four years, five years."

That's erring a bit on the conservative side. Thanks to Ambrose's amazing recruiting job and a bunch of talented players who mesh well on the field, the Quakers are ready to make waves this season.

For the ultra-talented Penn women's soccer team, the future is now.

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