Penn field hockey opened its season against two top-10 teams and learned a lot from the experience

Before every Penn field hockey game, the team’s jerseys are lined up on a rack in the locker room. Each player will take someone else’s jersey and deliver it to its owner, along with words of encouragement for the game they’re about to play.

Penn opened its 2023 season on Sept. 1 against North Carolina, the defending national champion, before taking on No. 9 Louisville two days later. Freshman defender Ellie Almeida, a Kennett Square native and Unionville graduate, had only found out that she’d be starting in the season opener the day before.

“One of the upperclassmen defenders, in the first game, gave me my jersey,” Almeida said. “I was just so in my head, like, ‘Oh my gosh, what if I screw everything up?’ And she just gave me my jersey, and reassured me, ‘I trust you. And the team trusts you.’”

The tradition is new this season and reflects the team’s tight-knit bond.

“We’re just very connected and supportive,” senior captain Allison Kuzyk said. “We have gotten close, to the point where we can give each other feedback and make each other better, in a constructive way.”

The Quakers (2-2) opened their season against two ACC powerhouses in a tradition that dates back to 2016, when the ACC/Ivy League Crossover began. Penn lost both its games that weekend, 4-0 to UNC and 2-1 to Louisville, but the scoreboard didn’t matter so much as the lessons the team gleaned from facing two top-10 programs.

“You know that you’re going to be genuinely tested,” Penn head coach Colleen Fink said. “You’re gonna see some deficits in your team’s play. You’re gonna see some strengths in your team’s play.”

A week later, Penn routed Georgetown, 8-1. Sophomore forward Livia Loozen recorded a hat trick. On Sunday, the Quakers knocked off Drexel, 2-1, in overtime.

Almeida is the only freshman to start all three games so far, but other members of her class are making an impact off the bench. Emily Stafford, a midfielder, has two goals already this season. Her first collegiate goal came against Louisville, Penn’s only one of the game, and she added another goal and an assist against the Hoyas.

Per Ivy League rules, Penn starts its season a week later than most other Division I programs, but facing game-tested, nationally ranked competition right off the bat helps with preparations for Ivy League competition that starts at the end of September.

“Challenging yourself is really important in order to get the best out of your own team,” Kuzyk said. “Any opportunity to play makes you get better, and I just think that opening up against some good teams is a good way to do that.”

Kuzyk is one of two captains, alongside senior forward Lis Zandbergen. Kuzyk was second on the team in goals in 2022 with six and earned second-team All-Ivy honors. She contributed one of Penn’s eight goals against Georgetown on Friday.

A major field hockey story of the year has been Erin Matson, who took over as head coach at UNC at just 23 years old, right after her decorated playing career as a Tar Heel ended. Matson, who graduated from Unionville a few years ahead of Almeida, was coaching her third official collegiate game against Penn on Sept. 1. A year prior, she’d been on the field, scoring one of UNC’s four goals against the Quakers in their 2022 meeting.

“I will say, it was nice to see her not on the field,” Fink said.

Penn’s own former captain, Gracyn Banks, is making a similar transition to coaching, albeit on a somewhat smaller scale. Banks accepted an assistant coaching job at Drexel after playing her final year of collegiate eligibility with Penn in 2022.

Banks, a defender, was a three-time All-Ivy selection for Penn, and led the team in defensive saves, assists, and was tied for second in points last year. Banks also played for Team USA at the Junior World Cup in South Africa in 2021.

“It’s gonna be weird,” Kuzyk said before facing Banks’ squad. “I think it’ll be exciting, in a way, but it’s gonna be really weird, especially for her to come back to Penn and coach against us on our field.”

Added Fink: “Gracyn is a great coach. I’ve worked with her in a lot of different things, whether it was our own camps and clinics, but also just out on the field. ... I’m very proud of her. I’m sure the team will be nervous, I think they want her to feel proud of Penn, even though she’s on the other sideline and on the other bench.”

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A major change this season is the inaugural Ivy League field hockey tournament. The top four teams in the conference will play a single-elimination tournament in November for the Ivy League championship, with a berth to the NCAA Tournament awaiting the winner.

In previous years, the Ivy team with the best regular-season record automatically qualified for the NCAA Tournament. The new format not only extends the season, but it brings parity to the conference.

“In previous years, in field hockey specifically, if you’d lost maybe one game even, you felt like your chances of making the NCAA Tournament could have slipped away really early on in the season,” Fink said. “More teams are going to feel like they’re in contention for longer periods of time, and people are going to be fighting for those four spots.”

The Quakers have not made the NCAA Tournament since 1993. But they have finished in the top four in the conference nine out of the past 10 Ivy League seasons.

Even with the league changes on the horizon, Penn has another locker room tradition that helps highlight the team’s legacy, organized by Fink. On each player’s locker, the names of every alumna who once wore their number are written.

“You see that on your locker, and you’re like, ‘OK, I need to continue the legacy that was left with this number,’” Almeida said.