W. HOOPS NOTEBOOK: W. Hoops dreams of an Ivy title have all but evaporated

The Penn darkhorse came up lame with a costly loss to Cornell Friday night, all but eliminating the Quakers from the open race for the Ivy League championship. The Harvard women's basketball team currently sits atop the Ancient Eight with a 6-1 record, followed by Dartmouth at 5-2. Penn and Princeton are coupled in third at 5-3 with six games left to play. Can the Quakers close the gap? Probably not. An 11-3 record wins the Ivies. Given the league parity, 10-4 might do it. Penn needs to win its final six games -- not likely since the school record for consecutive victories is five -- to maintain a legitimate shot at an Ancient Eight title. "The loss to Cornell was a setback," Penn coach Julie Soriero said. "It put us in a position where we can't stumble. Our destiny is in our own hands." It will be all the more difficult with four of those final six games on the road, including a nasty little weekend journey through Hanover, N.H., and Cambridge, Mass. Soriero was guardedly optimistic about her team's chances. "We're going to be a different team this weekend against Harvard and Dartmouth. I think we're going to be a little bit more prepared and a little bit more confident." · The mysterious curse of the Empire State plagued the Quakers once again last weekend. During Soriero's tenure, it has become a tradition for Penn to self-destruct on the annual trip to the Big Apple and Ithaca, and this year was no exception. The Quakers did, however, shun tradition in some sense, since it has usually been Columbia rather than Cornell that has proven to be Penn's nemesis. Coming into the weekend, the Quakers had never beaten Columbia on the road with Soriero pacing the sidelines, though they had enjoyed unprecedented success against the Big Red with a 28-3 advantage in the series. But while Penn's 69-59 victory Saturday over the winless Lions snapped the futility streak, it was Cornell that broke the Quakers' five-game winning streak with a 67-45 whipping Friday. "I don't know what it is about that trip," Soriero said. "It's a very demanding trip and it takes a real sense of mental toughness, which maybe with some of the younger players we didn't have." Penn didn't have any defense against the Big Red either -- a problem Soriero called a major reason for the loss, and one the Quakers are focusing on in practice this week. Cornell guard Mary LaMacchia ran wild on the Penn defense, racking up 30 points on 6-of-10 shooting from three-point range. But the Columbia game may have been even more disturbing. The Penn defense allowed the 0-20 Lions to shoot 57 percent from the field. "We really got away from that good, solid defense," Soriero said. "I think our defense generates our offense and when we don't have that aggressive defense, our offense gets sloppy. That's what we're trying to get back on track." · Three early decision applicants will wear the Red and Blue next season, adding some size to the Penn lineup. The most intriguing prospect is Carrie Fleck, a 6-foot-4 center from State College High School who may resurrect memories of Katarina Poulsen, the Quakers' all-Ivy center of a year ago. Soriero said Fleck "has good hands and a soft touch around the basket," though she will need to work on her footwork to adjust to the college game. Penn's other recruits are Megan Evans, a 6-0 small forward from Penn Charter in Philly, and Sue Van Stone, a 5-10 shooting guard from Mt. St. Joseph's Academy. · Sophomore power forward Deana Lewis, who sprained her right ankle against Cornell Friday and sat out the Columbia game Saturday, is practicing without pain and will be in the lineup this weekend at Harvard and Dartmouth.

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