Penn breathes easier

HANOVER, N.H. -- Fran Dunphy knows that his team plays in spurts.

He has accepted it, and he has built a gameplan around it. But against Dartmouth Saturday night, his team came through from start to finish.

"We certainly didn't want to let some of their very good three-point shooters loose, and I think we pretty much accomplished that," Dunphy said. "I think defensively that's a strong suit of ours. We were pretty strong defensively throughout."

Tim Begley reached 1,000 points for his Penn career, and the Quakers led from start to finish in a 68-44 rout of a Dartmouth squad that had upset Princeton the night before.

As it did Friday night at Harvard, the Red and Blue jumped out to an early lead. A Begley three capped a 13-0 run, giving Penn a 16-3 lead eight and a half minutes into the game. But unlike against the Crimson, Penn(11-7, 4-0 Ivy) gained a stranglehold over the Big Green (5-14, 2-4) and never looked back.

Eric Osmundson's two first-half threes helped the Quakers to a 34-16 lead at the break.

After shuffling the starting lineup early in the season, the starting five of Begley, Osmundson, Ibby Jaaber, Mark Zoller and Steve Danley have played excellently, leading the way in the team's current seven-game winning streak.

Steve Callahan and David Gardner led the Big Green with 11 points, but Dartmouth's offense had trouble scoring all night until Dunphy lifted his starters midway through the second half.

The only drama left for after the break was centered around Begley attaining yet another record in his stellar career. He entered the second half with 997 career points. After a jumper put him just one point away, Jaaber set him up perfectly for a wide-open three-pointer. Begley missed it, but Jaaber got the offensive rebound and gave his teammate a second chance.

This time, Begley's shot hit nothing but net. The senior celebrated by pointing at his mother and brother in the stands. Then he added an exclamation point with another three-pointer on the ensuing possession.

The shot gave Penn a 45-16 lead with 15:51 remaining in the second half, and the game was, for all intents and purposes, over.

Dunphy used the final 12 minutes to give playing time to some of his bench players, who will be vital to the squad as it continues to make its run towards the NCAA Tournament.

Friedrich Ebede tallied six points, four rebounds and a resounding block on Dartmouth's Paul Bode. Ryan Pettinella shook off early struggles at the foul line to give Dunphy a strong 14 minutes of action, and freshman Joe Gill scored his first collegiate points by hitting two free throws late in the game.

Overall, Dunphy was satisfied with the play of his reserves.

"Ryan's really hard to guard. He made a couple really nice moves inside. I thought David Whitehurst did some really nice things. And we need Jan [Fikiel] very much throughout the rest of the year because he's a very good basketball player. He's a key ingredient for us."

With the two victories over the weekend, Penn has put a considerable amount of space between itself and the rest of the Ivy League. With their undefeated record, the Quakers have a three-game lead in the loss column on everyone in the league except for 4-2 Cornell and 2-2 Brown.

But there are still 10 games left on the league schedule, and after the game Zoller put to rest any ideas that the Quakers think that the Ivy League race is over.

"We can't think like that," Zoller said. "We just gotta take each game at a time and stay focused."

And with a full game lead on everyone in the Ancient Eight, the Quakers truly control their own destiny.

As for the Quakers' next piece of business? An angry Princeton squad that has shockingly lost three out of its first four league games will enter the Palestra tomorrow night.

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