"It's going to take a little while for the offense to gel," agrees junior Eillen O'Neill. "The goals are going to have to be generated from the defense for a while."
It's that defense that provides the optimism for a team whose returning offense accounted for only 60 of last year's 237 goals.
O'Neill's back and there she'll be joined Jennifer Greely and Rhodes Scholar senior Sarah Sewall, both of whom took last season off. Kleinfelder's counting on the group's experience to make up for the graduation of Kate Martin and Jeanne Piersiak.
"Sarah and Jennifer give us new depth that was unexpected," Kleinfelder says.
In goal, second team All-Ivy goalie Krickett Johnson returns with added confidence, while senior Beth Mullen puts on the backup pads after a stint last year at defense.
"The potential's there," Kleinfelder says of the squad that lacks the size of past years but has the speed it's never had.
"We'll have to be a scrappy team," she adds, cognizant that the days of nine and 10 goal wins are gone. "If they let themselves go, though, maybe we'll surprise a few people."
Cornell, Princeton and Yale won't be so surprised if the Crimson runs to its fourth straight Ivy title. But Penn. Brown and the Cinderella story of the Ivies when it finished second in the league last year--Dartmouth--might have another thing to say.
Those three figure to give the Crimson a run for the title, which automatically sends the champion to the 12-team NCAA tournament, culminating with the Final Four at Boston University in May.
Snow bound
But Kleinfelder would first like to make a run for the field. Soldiers Field. ASAP.
The recent snow has kept the Crimson show locked in Briggs Cage, preventing the squad from full field practice.
"We're the kind of team that's going to be stronger at the end," Kleinfelder says, "and we can't even seem to get started."
So with the fields still covered with snow, the squad's home opener has become the local opener, and this afternoon has become tonight.
The game with the University of Rhode Island originally scheduled for 3 p.m. on Soldiers Field has been slated for a 6 p.m. start at B.U.