Season Preview | Time to shine as youth hits prime

After losing 12 players to graduation and returning only two starters, it's not surprising that the men's soccer team is having a bit of an identity crisis.

"At this point, being nine or 10 days into our preseason, we're still trying to get us sorted out and figure out who we are as a team," coach Rudy Fuller said of his young squad Tuesday.

Time's running out on the Quakers, who in 2008 ended their 11-3-4 season with a 1-0 loss to George Mason in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. They play tomorrow against Seton Hall at Rhodes Field and will travel to Villanova Monday to take on the Wildcats.

After winning a share of the Ancient Eight crown - Dartmouth technically tied Penn at 5-1-1, but the Red and Blue beat them 1-0 in the regular season - Penn is trying to think of this season as a clean slate rather than a follow-up to last year's success.

"On day one, we said that we weren't defending the Ivy League title," Fuller said.

"I think if we had the same 28 guys that we had last year, then we'd be defending our championship. But right now, we have a new team that's trying to … be deserving champions."

Fuller has a lot of work ahead of him. Aside from sophomores Christian Barreiro and Jake Levin, who each started all of the team's 18 games last fall, only five other players on the current roster started last season - and none more than three times.

Penn is without its top four goal-scorers from 2008, but its biggest loss may be in front of the net. Star goalkeeper Drew Healy, who sported a 0.63 goals-against average and set the all-time Penn record for shutouts in a season with 11, graduated in May.

The job vacated by Healy will go to one of three candidates. Junior Ben Berg holds a slight advantage over sophomore Dan Thau and freshman Garon Smith due to his age and experience.

The Quakers' defenders think that they can still excel without Healy behind them.

"We're confident with our next guy," said Levin, who as a freshman defender was an honorable mention All-Ivy selection.

Berg has "proved himself for two years now and has had a great preseason," Levin said. "We have great goalies, and they've proved themselves in practice thus far."

Though Berg has worn red and blue for two seasons, Fuller isn't ready to hand him the starting job just yet.

"They've had quite a battle going on during preseason," Fuller said. "All three keepers have pleasantly surprised us.

"We're fortunate to have some choices."

While Penn has had to go back to the drawing board with an almost entirely new starting lineup, it hopes to find success by emphasizing fundamental play.

"We're very confident in the basics of this game: playing good defense, passing and putting the ball in the back of the net," senior defender Lee Rubenstein said. "And we think if we do those three things, we're going to get … results."

Although the starting squad will feature many new faces, Fuller hinted that, for the most part, the six members of the freshman class probably won't be on the field when the whistle blows Friday.

Despite having relatively few starts, many upperclassmen contributed significantly off the bench.

"We're fortunate that throughout last season a lot of these guys saw significant playing time, so there's not a lot of inexperience on the field for us," Fuller said.

Last year's role players think they are ready to take on greater responsibilty.

"It definitely is a new start for a lot of us, but … myself included and a lot of the other new starters felt like we contributed a lot last year," said junior defender Zach Barnett, who never started last year.

"Whether it was coming off the bench, coming in in key spots, or coming in at the end of the year when people got hurt, we feel like we have that experience to keep the program going," he said.

While in their eyes they are not defending a title, the 2009 Quakers are out to show that they can win one all on their own.

"I definitely feel like we have something to prove," Barnett said. "And we'll have a chip on our shoulder and try to prove that we're just as capable as the guys last year."

- Associate Sports Editor Lauren Plotnick contributed reporting to this article.

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