Opposing frontcourts bury W. Hoops in losses

The Penn women's basketball team ended 2001 and began 2002 in the same unspectacular fashion.

After dropping a 73-65 contest to Siena(7-3) on Dec. 29 at the Palestra, the Quakers lost their second straight home contest, falling to Princeton 66-56 in their Ivy League opener on Jan. 4.

Last season, Penn shocked the Saints 88-79, defeating them on their home court behind a pair of twenty-point performances by seniors Diana Caramanico and Erin Ladley.

This season, the magic just wasn't there for Penn (3-7, 0-1 Ivy), as the Quakers -- despite trailing by only one at halftime, 31-30 -- were unable to prevail down the stretch. Siena junior forward Gunta Basko scored 26 points, including her 1,000th career point, leading the Saints to the win.

"We really let Basko take over the game," Penn senior forward Julie Epton said. "She went to school on us.

"We didn't step up to the challenge of shutting her down like we needed to. We didn't take it personally like we needed to."

After starting the season with a mediocre 3-6 record, ringing in the New Year the defending Ivy League champs looked to continue their in-conference supremacy and extend their fourteen-game Ancient Eight win streak.

What better opponent to beat up upon that perennial Ivy dormat and Penn rival Princeton.

In its last Ivy contest on Mar. 8, 2001, Penn's 78-69 victory over the hapless 2-25 Tigers sealed its first undefeated Ivy league title run.

But as the Quakers floundered to a ten-point loss on Friday afternoon, last season's title team looked to be a distant memory from a distant past.

"We just didn't play well," Penn junior forward Jennifer Jones said. "We weren't playing defense, we were just letting hem drive into the middle and they were just getting easy baskets."

The Quakers began the opening half of the game against the Tigers(7-5, 1-0) much in the same way that they had concluded the second half fallout against Siena -- with an offensive nightmare.

Shooting a meager 10-for-40 (25 percent) from the floor in the first half, as compared to Princeton's blistering 14-for-28 (50%), Penn was lucky to find itself trailing by only six points, 33-27, at halftime on "Pack the Palestra" day.

The Quakers entertained nearly 600 school childen from the Delaware Valley region as part of the day's events. The students -- who comprised the greater portion of the 853 fans attending the game -- competed in a host of activities throughout the course of the game, including halftime relay races to the support of the Palestra crowd.

Following the halftime entertainment mired in a narrow deficit, the Quakers knew they would need a strong second half if they were to claim victory against the Tigers.

Unfortunately, Penn's second half swiss-cheese defense mimicked that which you would expect from a team of youngsters in a game in the school yard at recess.

"In the second half our defense fell apart," Jones said. 'We were letting them drive and they were doing a lot of isolation."

Behind a sizzling 20 points from forward Lauren Rigney and a stellar 14 point, 10 rebound effort from Kelly Schaeffer, the Tigers frontcourt powered their way past Penn.

The Red and Blue's offense had little combattive resilience.

The Quakers were unable to mount an offensive comeback, as Penn's offensive sparkplug Jewel Clark played only seventeen minutes in the game, fouling out with 7:13 remaining in the contest.

Well below her average of 14.3 points per game, the sophomore guard finished with an underwhelming four points on 1-for-9 shooting.

"Offensively, I just didn't have it," Clark said. "With those fouls you have to play cautiously and it got to me. I just didn't knock down my shots."

The lone bright spot for Penn, forward Epton narrowly missed registering her first double-double of the season.

The tri-captain, shouldering the brunt of the Quakers scoring load with Clark on the bench, tallied 19 points on 8-for-16 shooting to go along with nine rebounds.

Epton aside, the rest of Penn's starters combined to shoot a disastrous 9-for-39 from the floor.

With a nonexistent defense and a woeful offense struggling on Penn's home floor, last season's championship banner looked lonely in the corner rafters of the Palestra last Friday.

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