For each sports activities staff, one of the crucial necessary video games of the season is the opener. Mantras of “starting strong” and “gaining momentum” populate locker room speeches throughout the nation, and few video games can match the power connected to the primary sport.

But for Penn sports activities, the beginning of the season has not gone in keeping with plan. Teams that compete in head-to-head style — males’s and ladies’s soccer, discipline hockey, and volleyball — are a mixed 2-9 to begin the season, together with 0-2 begins for discipline hockey and males’s soccer, the latter of which was nationally ranked heading into the season. For all the main focus that goes into beginning on the precise foot, the outcomes haven’t materialized for the Red and Blue.

It goes with out saying that such a begin isn’t very best for the Quakers — however for my part, it’s hardly consequential. For all of the date-circling, the season opener is simply one other sport. And for all of the anticipation, a nasty first week doesn’t make a nasty staff.

In 2018, the hometown Philadelphia Eagles entered the season because the reigning Super Bowl champions following their first title in franchise historical past. But the Birds dropped three of their first 5 video games, placing them on the surface trying in because the playoff race started. What resulted was a stretch of 5 wins within the remaining six video games of the common season (fueled by the return of Nick Foles, the staff’s Super Bowl hero), a playoff look, and a one-possession loss towards the NFC’s top-seeded New Orleans Saints.

While the Quakers might not have any Super Bowl MVPs coming to save lots of the day, the very best model of every particular person staff has nonetheless but to look. Men’s soccer’s offense — which led the Ivy League in scoring targets a season in the past — has been dormant off the bat, managing only one purpose over two video games. Field hockey, which confirmed the flexibility to maintain up with the very best within the nation in 2022, fell to No. 1 North Carolina and No. 9 Louisville by a mixed margin of 6-1.

All this to say that the very best is but to come back for the Red and Blue. It is simple to see the zeroes within the win column and hit the panic button, however defining the entire by such a small pattern could be a mistake. When the season ultimately attracts to a detailed, these sluggish begins shall be remembered as nothing greater than wins and losses.

Additionally, a rocky starting typically supplies groups with an inflection level — a spot to contemplate what’s gone improper and learn how to repair it. It is at that juncture that some groups discover out who they are surely. It is the place unhealthy groups fall and nice groups rise.

For the Penn sports activities sluggish to begin, there are doubtless higher days on the horizon. But within the search to find out what sort of staff they really are, it’s now or by no means.

WALKER CARNATHAN is a sophomore and present deputy sports activities editor finding out English from Harrisburg, Pa. All feedback must be directed to dpsports@thedp.com.