By HALEY VELASCO
Another one bites the dust for men’s soccer, who lost its first Ivy League game Saturday night against Penn in a 1-0 match, where the Red outshot the Quakers, but due to some defensive mishaps, the Red returned to the Hill empty-handed.
“That’s a focus going forward. Putting away the chances that we get and continuing to not give up any chances to the other team,” senior captain Patrick Slogic said.
The shutout for the Red was the second straight that the team has had this season thus far — Saturday against Penn and last weekend in the 1-0 loss against Niagara. Before the Penn loss, Cornell had not suffered back-to-back losses since October 2010, when the team fell in similar one-goal losses against Yale and Lafayette.
In the Saturday showdown, Penn (4-6-0, 1-0 Ivy League) ended the 0-0-grudge match in the 81st minute when Johnny Dolezal redirected a corner kick for the solo goal of the game.
Senior captain Ben Williams pinpointed the downfall of Cornell in Saturday’s loss to the intensity level of the team.
“First off, we have to raise our intensity. For the new guys, it will be a whole new experience. The focus that we will need is way more intense. Building off all of the positives and learning from the mistakes.”
Cornell (6-2-2, 0-1 Ivy) had plenty of scoring chances, as well as the team put pressure on Penn’s goalkeeper Max Polkinhorne, who ended the game with seven saves in the shutout.
The Red also dominated the Quakers in shots take on goal as the Red took 14 compared to the Quakers’ seven throughout the 90 minutes.
“For our less experienced players, it’s a wake up call for the intensity level [of Ivy play],” senior captain Jake Rinow said.
Four of the 14 shots that Cornell took came from freshman Sebastian Scales, who tried to snatch a win for the Red along with the rest of the team. Slogic also had his fair share of shots on goal with three, but the captain just could not put the game away for Cornell.
“We have definitely created a lot of chances in every game to win. We felt that we should have won all of the games we played,” Slogic said. “Every game is going to be different going forward. Every game, we need to put away the chances that we get because the longer [we] let teams hang in there, the longer [we] give [them] chances to steal away points.”
Cornell will return to Berman next weekend to take on another Ancient Eight competitor, Harvard, on Saturday.
Slogic highlighted what the Red has to do in the next week to up its level play and snatch the win from the Crimson. “[We need to] improve on the aspects that we need to win games,” he said.