Men's Soccer Drops First Ivy Match at Home on Saturday

Saturday, October 18

Hanover, N.H.

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

PENN

Men's Soccer Drops First Ivy Match at Home on Saturday

10/18/2014 8:58:00 PM | Men's Soccer

By: Dartmouth

HANOVER, N.H. – The Dartmouth men's soccer team dropped its first Ivy League contest of the season, 2-1, to Penn on Saturday evening at Burnham Field.

Dartmouth found the back of the net early in the contest, as a penalty kick was issued to the Big Green when a Penn defender was called for using his hands in the box. Senior Gabe Stauber scored on a kick in the 7th minute to give the Green and White a 1-0 lead. It was Stauber's stutter step before striking the ball that forced Penn keeper Max Polkinhorne to commit early to his left side.

"We were obviously pleased to take an early lead, and I thought we started the game very well," said head coach Chad Riley. "One of the most difficult things in soccer is to fight the urge to protect a lead, and I thought we gave into that urge a little in the first half. I thought we were playing just 'ok', but we have another gear in us that we weren't getting to, and I think Penn deserves some credit for that but we still need to push ourselves to that next level."

The Quakers also found a way to score in the half, this time it was off a set piece. Forrest Clancy's corner kick was served to the top of the box and was put in by the Sam Wanxowicz, who was issued a yellow card earlier in the frame. Penn's goal was scored in the 35th minute. Both sides each had four shots, with the visitors holding a 3-2 edge in corner kicks.

"Overall we were solid defensively. Although we pride ourselves on set piece defending, we should have done better on their equalizer. But other that one other half chance we really didn't give much away against a very dangerous attacking team in Penn," continued Riley.

Penn (6-6, 2-1 Ivy) took a lead in the 59th minute on a give-and-go pass from Clancy to Austin Kuhn that rolled past Dartmouth junior keeper Stefan Cleveland.

The hosts had multiple chances to tie the contest in the final minutes of play, but Polkinhorne made a pair of saves on senior Gabe Hoffman-Johnson to secure the win.

Dartmouth finished the contest with a 13-6 advantage in shots. Cleveland made one save, while Polkinhorne made all four stops in the final frame.

Dartmouth (7-4-1, 2-1-0 Ivy) will head to New York City to meet Columbia next Saturday.