It was a clash of the titans on Friday afternoon as the Harvard women’s soccer team visited rival University of Pennsylvania (4-4, 1-0 Ivy) for both squads’ first Ivy League game of the season.

The two teams stepped onto the field with the last three Ivy League championships under their belt: Penn won the title in 2007, and the Crimson claimed the Ancient Eight crown in 2008 and 2009. Each side managed to take the lead twice throughout the match, but it was the Quakers who held on, claiming a 4-3 win.

“It’s a completely different level of play, because we’re all trying to play for one thing, and that’s the Ivy League championship,” rookie goalkeeper Jessica Wright said. “It’s a war, a battle, so it’s completely different than playing a preseason game. [Preseason games are] still a competitive interest, but it’s definitely a completely different thing.”

Knowing that Penn’s previous three wins all came in shutouts, Harvard came out ready to score early and often. Co-captain Katherine Sheeleigh led the charge, taking a pass from junior defender Lindsey Kowal and directing past a defender and into the net just 12 minutes into the game.

“We wanted to score first so that we could shake them off a little bit, to get their heads a little rattled,” Wright said.

The lead quickly disappeared though, as 73 seconds later Wright tried to push a header over the crossbar, letting Quaker junior Ursula Lopez-Palm knock the ball in and knot the score.

At the 22-minute mark Harvard took the lead again, as a pass from Sheeleigh landed on the foot of junior Melanie Baskind. Baskind delivered, hammering a shot past Penn’s junior goaltender Caroline Williams to give Harvard a 2-1 advantage.

But seven minutes later, a pass to Penn junior Marin McDermott turned into a one-on-one between the Quaker forward and Wright. McDermott scored her first goal of the season, evening the score again.

“Our plan was to be consistent,” Baskind said, “to come out with a lot of energy pretty much every game, and I think that we came out slow in the first half. It was nice to get some goals, but I don’t think we were necessarily playing as well.”

The Crimson would never lead again, as Penn sophomore midfielder Erin Beck took a shot from 25 yards out that sailed over Wright’s head, allowing the Quakers to go into the break ahead by one.

Trailing 3-2 in the second half, Sheeleigh and Baskind went on the attack. Standing in front of Williams’ goal, Baskind directed a pass from Sheeleigh into the corner of the net.

The rest of the half ticked down in suspense. Penn looked to have a winner midway through the half, but Wright pushed away the shot from McDermott. The winner eventually did come, as Lopez-Palm blasted a shot from 10 yards out with less than 20 minutes to play, creating chaos on the Quaker bench.

“I thought the score didn’t reflect how the team played,” Wright said. “We fought really hard throughout the game. It was a really rough game.”

Twenty-four total fouls and two yellow cards proved the aggressiveness of the contest. But while Harvard owned an advantage in total shots, shots on goal, and corner kicks, Williams’ seven saves for Penn helped the Quakers hold off the Crimson in the final minutes.

“It’s our first Ivy game, and people felt a lot of pressure to perform,” Baskind said. “It’s definitely frustrating, but I think that it’ll make us better in the weeks to come in terms of gaining preparation and settling down and playing the way that we like to play.”

Though the loss puts Harvard at a disadvantage when Ivy League play resumes against Yale this weekend, the squad knows from experience that wins against every other Ivy school could lead to a third consecutive crown. In the 2008 season, a 2-0 loss to Penn was followed by five Ivy League wins and one tie, which allowed the Crimson to strip the league title from the Quakers and claim a share of the crown.

“The league is very competitive, but I don’t think we’re feeling at all that we’ve dug our own grave,” Baskind said. “I think our goal is to [win the rest of the games] from here. We did it two years ago, and hopefully that will be enough.”

But as Wright said, it will be a challenge at every turn.

“We can still go 6-1 and pull out an Ivy League championship,” she said. “We just need to fight at every game and battle for some wins.”

—Staff writer Alex Sopko can be reached at sopko@fas.harvard.edu.