HANOVER, N.H. –The Dartmouth women's soccer team picked up their first Ivy League win of the season with a 1-0 defeat over Penn on Saturday at Burnham Field.
Dartmouth improves to 7-4-2, 1-2-1 while Penn drops to 3-3-7, 0-3-2.
"Super excited," said Stacy and Nick Branca Family Head Coach of Women's Soccer
Ron Rainey. "These games are so hard; this league is so good and competitive."
Speaking about the defensive performance, Rainey said "we talk a lot about knocking people off their runs, so they don't get a clean shot on goal. I felt we did really well with that."
Aleena Seales scored the match's lone goal in the 30
th minute. Defense played a huge role for the Big Green as
Charlotte Cyr made seven saves to claim her fifth clean sheet of the season.
Laurence Gladu made two saves for the Quakers.
After a closely contested opening 30 minutes, the Big Green scored the lone goal of the match with 15 minutes left to go until the half.
Hailey Rorick played the ball out to the right side to
Grace Martin, who struck it first time with a long ball over the defense to Seales. Seales brought it down with a great first touch before firing off a shot to the top left corner and into the back of the net.
The Quakers almost equalized late in the half with one of their best chances of the day. Sizzy Lawton, with the ball on the left side of the box, cut back across the middle and took a shot with her right foot towards the back post but it struck the outside of the woodwork and out of play.
The best opportunity for Penn came shortly into the second half. Janae Stewart was sent through on goal, but the close-range strike was saved by Cyr. The rebound fell back towards the middle to Lucy Kellogg, who shot the ball immediately, but Cyr made an acrobatic save to keep the Big Green ahead 1-0.
Rainey finished by saying "this is what an Ivy League game looks like and we're excited to be on the right end of it."
Dartmouth has a quick turnaround as Colby-Sawyer comes to Burnham Field on Monday evening for the Big Green's non-conference finale. Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m. and the game will be available to stream on ESPN+ and Stretch Internet.