Lone juniors at the Palestra

The chant is gone, and for Dan Solomito, that's probably a good thing. For the first two years of his Penn career, Palestra fans chanted Solomito's name whenever a game got out of hand. While they wanted to see the only member of the Quakers' Class of 2002, their greater desire was to signal the arrival of garbage time. "It's obviously something I've noticed," Solomito said. "I can't put my finger on if it was a feeling of embarrassment just to hear my name or if it was kind of a good feeling, like they're accepting me at the beginning of my career.... It's one of those things that doesn't really cross my mind too often. I guess it was all in good fun at the time. If they want to do it, that's great. If not, that's fine also." This year, Solomito has played his way into the rotation. He scored a career-high nine points against St. Joseph's last week, and the chant has disappeared. There's never been a chant for Julie Epton. In fact, she wasn't even recruited to play basketball at Penn. Epton was recruited as a track athlete, as she had been on a three-time state championship team at Ann Arbor Pioneer in Michigan. "Thank God she walked on," Penn women's basketball coach Kelly Greenberg said. "I don't know what she did in track, but she's a basketball player. She's got a feel for it. She's got a good understanding of the game. She's got the size. She's the complete package." And when she arrived at the Palestra, Epton had high expectations. "I came into college wanting to start freshman year," a chuckling Epton said. "That was my goal. I didn't envision any coming off the bench. When I got to college, I realized that it's a different game, and it's not always normal for freshmen to start. It's just not really what you should expect. But it's always something I've worked for, besides just wanting to help the team out." There were three other freshmen on the 1998-99 Penn women's basketball team with Epton. By the beginning of last season, though, Tiffany Bell, Maria Demeke and Melissa Lopez were no longer with the Quakers. Epton stayed on, and she has blossomed over the past two-and-a-half years. The sole junior for Kelly Greenberg's squad has worked her way into the starting lineup and currently averages 9.7 points per game. "She's as competitive as anyone on our team," Greenberg said. "In a drill or a game, she's just such a fierce competitor. That's what makes players better than they are sometimes, and that's what she brings every day. She's just a real trooper [regarding injuries]. She just says, 'I'm alright.' Anything to just be on the court. She doesn't have excuses, and you just love that in a player. She wants to be on the court and nowhere else." As her classmates left, Epton grew very close with this year's group of talented seniors. She knows that as the Ivy League season kicks into high gear on Friday night, time will be running out on her basketball relationship with those seniors. "I've formed a bond with the senior class," Epton said. "It's going to be tough to see them go." Solomito has already had a lot of experience with close friends leaving Penn. Since he was the only freshman on the team when he arrived, Solomito latched onto the team's old guard -- then-seniors Paul Romanczuk and Jed Ryan and then-juniors Michael Jordan and Matt Langel. "Fortunately for my sake, I had some guys who had obviously been around," Solomito said. "They had some good experience here and most importantly were good people who realized the situation I was in. Guys like Jed and Paul as seniors at the time were great. And Mike and Matt, two people who, to this day, I stay very close with and speak to very often." Solomito is truly no lone wolf. In addition to befriending the older members of the Red and Blue, he joined a fraternity in his freshman year. "The fraternity thing is something that I'm definitely fortunate to have," Solomito said. "I would go back to the Quad and there wouldn't be basketball players. I had to socially interact with other people, and it just so happened that people I interacted with were kids who all ended up joining a fraternity. It wasn't something I was planning on doing. It kind of just happened." On the court, there can be no such serendipity. It has been more of a struggle for Solomito to find his place. He played in 11 games as a freshman and 15 last season. In those 15 games last year, Solomito totaled 18 points and seven rebounds. As a high schooler, by contrast, he averaged 19 points and nine boards per game. Solomito seems to be getting his chance right now. He connected on three threes and earned cheers as one of Penn's few bright spots against the Hawks on Saturday. "I think he'll be OK," said Jordan, who worked out with Solomito on Monday. "So long as he keeps working hard. He's in the gym every day." Solomito's path toward meaningful playing time, however, may still be blocked. "I think Dan's very respectful and understanding, but he's like every other college player; he wants to play," Penn men's basketball coach Fran Dunphy said. "But over the last couple of years he's had guys in front of him. Dan's a good basketball player, but he's been an inconsistent basketball player. "Hopefully he's starting to arrive and understand that and he'll have a strong finish to this year. Andy Toole [a transfer from Elon who is sitting out this season] is another guy who's going to play maybe at a two-guard spot, and be another guy that he'll have to compete with." Epton has had more of an opportunity to carve out her own niche. After averaging about 12 minutes a game off the bench as a freshman, she started 21 of 28 games last season. She has started nine of Penn's 16 contests this year, and has certainly positioned herself to be the starter for the rest of this season and next year. "Coach made a change," Epton said. "We just weren't doing that well at the beginning of the year, and she was trying to mix things up a bit, and thought she'd try inserting me in the lineup. So far, it's working pretty well." Epton also knows that she'll be the only senior for the Red and Blue next season, and that she'll probably be called upon as a leader. "She learns from Diana [Caramanico's] performance and from Erin [Ladley's] vocal leadership," Greenberg says. "Julie is as good a teammate as anyone on our team.... It's just going to fall naturally for her to be the leader next year." Epton and Solomito are also aware of their status as the only two juniors on Penn's basketball teams. The two players have talked, and do support each other, but their relationship is no deeper than that of any other two hoopsters at Penn. They will be the lone elder statesmen of Penn basketball at the end of this season, but their playing futures seem to have little in common. As Epton continues to entrench herself in her team's starting lineup, it seems that Solomito, still a crowd favorite, will likely end his career as Penn's sixth man. By then, the chant will probably be but a memory, as will Epton's days of struggling to define her place on the team. Their basketball lives are intertwined by a coincidence, and little more. But by the end of this year's Ivy League season, it will be a bit clearer where each one's place in Quakers history will be.

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