City foe Drexel gives Men's Hoops first defeat

With 6:51 left in last night's game, and the Quakers trailing Drexel, 53-46, Penn's Koko Archibong stepped to the foul line for a one-and-one.

Penn looked poised to make a run, after trailing Drexel for much of the second half. Archibong, an 81.6 percent free-throw shooter last season, was at the charity stripe and the Quakers -- after Tim Begley and Jeff Schiffner checked back in --had all five starters on the floor.

Archibong would never get to shoot the foul shots. Just as he was ready to fire, Penn senior forward Ugonna Onyekwe jumped into the lane, committing a lane violation.

It was a critical blow, as the ball and momentum shifted back to the visiting Dragons (1-1), who held on for a 71-62 victory at the Palestra.

"It's a big mistake that we made there," said Penn coach Fran Dunphy, about Onyekwe's lane violation. "U has just got to trust that [Archibong] is going to knock those two shots down."

While Penn (1-1),which starts three seniors, sputtered last night when the pressure was on, a far less experienced Drexel squad kept its composure.

After the Quakers took a 33-32 lead moments into the second half -- Penn's first edge since Drexel's Robert Battle hit a layup to give the Dragons a 23-22 advantage with 2:58 left in the first half -- Drexel came back to reel off a 15-0 run, putting them up 47-33, with 14:22 left.

During the run, the Dragons were led by supersub Jeremiah King, who scored 10 of his 13 points during the 2:44 bulge.

"We got ourselves a lead, and they made some timely baskets," Dunphy said. "We didn't answer that much."

In the first four minutes of the game, it looked as if Penn was off to its second straight blowout victory, having beaten Penn State, 62-37, on Saturday night.

The Quakers opened up a quick 8-0 edge, as Drexel missed its first seven shots, committing four turnovers during that span.

Though Penn was plagued with turnovers of its own -- the Quakers turned the ball over four times in the first four minutes -- it looked to be the clearly superior team, passing the ball at will against the Dragons' defense.

And then Battle started to fight.

The 6-foot-8 senior, who was held scoreless in the opening minutes, first made his presence felt on the defensive end, as his block keyed Drexel guard Phil Goss' lay-in, which put Drexel on the board.

His goose-egg soon disappeared as well, as Battle scored 10 points over the final 16 minutes of the half staking Drexel to a 28-27 lead despite a last second three pointer by Schiffner.

Battle would continue to torch Penn in the second half, registering 11 points and seven rebounds, to finish with 21 points and 10 boards.

His five offensive rebounds --three of which came in the second half -- were perhaps his most critical impact on the game, as they led to five Drexel points in the second stanza.

"I'm shocked it was just five offensive rebounds [for Battle]," Dunphy said. "It seemed like 25 to be quite frank."

It was the Dragons' plan to feed the ball to Battle even before tipoff. And Penn only helped the cause, as Archibong was forced to the bench with two quick first-half fouls for the second straight game.

Sophomore Jan Fikiel took the assignment of guarding Battle, a reigning first-team All-Colonial Athletic Conference selection. It was a mismatch that Drexel would exploit.

"Our whole game plan was to go inside to Robert [Battle]," Drexel coach James "Bruiser" Flint said. "I didn't think they had anybody that could guard Robert."

And yet, despite struggling nearly the entire game, the Quakers still were down only five points with 1:19 left, after an Andrew Toole three-pointer.

Emblematic of its shooting woes all game -- Penn shot 36.5 percent from the field -- the Quakers went 1-for-7 in that final span and walked off the court with its first defeat of the year.

Drexel's "shooting percentage [41. 5 percent for the game] wasn't spectacular, but they made them at the right time," Dunphy said. "They just wanted it more than we did."

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