PHILADELPHIA, Pa. (1/29/12) – The University of Pennsylvania women’s basketball team came out looking for a weep of their first Ivy Weekend series of the season. The Red and Blue played a consistent game against Columbia on Friday. However, they did not show enough consistency on both ends of the floor as they lose 67 – 53 to Big Red of Cornell at the Palestra. Penn had good stretches, but when the offense was working, the defense was not able to stop Cornell for the full forty minutes which forced the
Mike McLaughlin"I think it was the consistency overall," said Penn Coach Mike McLaughlin explaining the loss. "We came out Friday and we played well on both ends of the floor. We struggled to score today. They (Cornell) slowed the game, controlled the pace, and it affected us on both ends of the court. Once we finally started to score they way we are capable of scoring, we didn't demand the stop. The game was more of a defensive thing."The game started slowly for both teams. The inside plays were working for each team, but the outside shots were not. Penn led 13 - 10 with 7:01 to play in the first half. The Big Red scored the next six points until Penn answered with a jump shot by Sophomore guard Alyssa Baron to bring the Red and Blue to within a point with 4:26 to halftime. Cornell took control of the game at this point with a 12 - 6 run keyed by forward Sarah Poland who scored half of the points going into halftime leading 28 - 21."I thought the last four minutes of the half were crucial," said McLaughlin. "They went into halftime up seven with momentum, and got us on our heels. They controlled the tempo the entire time. The aggressor is usually the most successful, and whoever controls the tempo usually has the better chance to win."Cornell came out in the second half scoring 11 of the first 13 points to take a 39 - 23 lead with 14:22 remaining in the game. The Big Red retained a 13 point lead with just under 10 minutes to play. Baron started to connect on shots for Penn, but so did Cornell. Despite 10 consecutive Penn points by Baron, the Cornell lead was still 10 points. A three-pointer by Freshman guard Jackie Kates got Penn to within seven at 53 - 46 with 5:50 to play. Penn scored only 4 points the rest of the game.The Red and Blue seemed to get some offense going, but the defense was not there. The team could not get both parts of the game going at the same time. It was inability to stop Cornell resulted in the final 14 point margin of victoryAlyssa Baron
“There were times when we went on our run, but we couldn’t get a stop,” Baron said. “Usually the momentum takes you from defense to offense, but somehow it wasn’t there. The defense was not there.”
Kates scored 10 points and handed out 3 assists for Penn. Baron scored a game-high 24 points and took down 6 rebounds. Of her 24 points the Sophomore guard scored 14 in the last eleven minutes of the game as she showed a sense of urgency on offense.
“I knew I had to contribute in some way,” said Baron. “I was trying to push and help my team win.”
Cornell had four players score in double figures. Forward Clare Fitzpatrick had a team-high 14, Poland added 13 points. Forward Maka Anyanwu scored 11 points. Guard Allyson DiMagno filled the stat sheet with 10 points, a team leading in rebounds with 10 and 4 assists. Cornell shot 57.1% for the game making 24 of 42 field goal attempts. Penn made only 19 of 55 shots for 34.5%.
Penn drops to 8 – 9 on the season, and is 1 – 2 in the Ivy League. The Quakers will get their next attempt to sweep an Ivy League weekend starting on February 3rd and 4th when they host Yale and Brown.
“We’re going to learn how to do that,” Baron said. “We were happy with Friday, but now we have to move on to the next games. This is only the first weekend, and we have a lot of work to do.”
RELEASE FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PHILADELPHIA – Freshman forward Kara Bonenberger and Sophomore guard Alyssa Baron swept the Ivy and Big 5 Weekly awards for the University of Pennsylvania women’s basketball team on Monday as announced by the […]
PHILADELPHIA, December 22, 2011 – All 6 Division I Philadelphia Women’s Basketball teams were in action. What happened? Let’s see. Penn 67 Drexel 65 in Overtime at the Palestra This may have been the gutsiest […]
PHILADELPHIA, January 7, 2012 – The Princeton Tigers Women’s team is going after their third consecutive Ivy League title. The Tigers sent a message to the Ivy League that the fully intend to win the […]
Be the first to comment