Cornell finally upends Quakers

ITHACA, N.Y. - Saturday night may have marked a change in the Ivy League guard.

In front of a raucous Newman Center crowd, Cornell defeated Penn 87-74 and took a stranglehold on the early championship race.

Cornell's victory effectively knocked the Quakers (7-14, 2-2 Ivy League) off their pedestal as the league's dominant team and propelled the Big Red (14-5, 6-0) to that perch.

"If you're going to win a championship, you have to beat the champions, and they've been the champions," Cornell guard Adam Gore said of Penn. "It was just a big win for our program."

Up 71-58 with under seven minutes to go, it looked like the Big Red were going to run away with the game, especially considering Penn's best scorer, Tyler Bernardini did not make the trip.

But thanks to a full-court press that caused three Cornell turnovers, Penn proceeded to go on an 11-0 run. Jack Eggleston's three-pointer from the wing completed the run and brought Penn to within two points.

Unfazed, Ryan Wittman - who had a game high 25 points on 5-for-8 shooting from long range - hit a tough three on the very next possession. The shot sparked a 10-0 run for the Big Red, and before the Quakers could recover, the game was out of reach.

"That's one thing good teams do. When a team makes a run, you stop it, minimize the damage and make your own run," Gore said.

Wittman was part of a 10-for-17 three-point barrage by Steve Donahue's team, but it was the Big Red's ability to get to the free throw line that really put them over the hump.

Cornell shot 27-for-29 from the charity stripe. Gore and Louis Dale got into the lane at will and were a combined 21-for-22 from the line.

A lot of the fouls came from Penn defenders getting caught in the air after pump fakes from Cornell's guards.

"The coaches were telling us how aggressive they were, so I took it as a chance to pump fake people," Gore said. "They happened to just keep going for it."

Though the Quakers were overmatched on defense, they put forth one of their best offensive performance of the season.

The Penn offense was keyed by Harrison Gaines, who finished with 19 points, and Andreas Schreiber, who led Penn with 23 points after getting a surprise start.

"We just figured we'd give him a start tonight and if he picked up a couple fouls or turned the ball over, we'd let him play through it," coach Glen Miller said.

The sophomore forward came out of the gates aggressive and hit his first four shots of the game. After one jumper late in the first half, Schreiber backpedaled down the court yelling at his defender, "You can't stop me! You can't stop me!"

Miller said, "This game should be a confidence boost for him."

After back-to-back double digit losses, the Quakers will have to go back to the drawing board to gain their confidence back before rival Princeton visits the Palestra tomorrow night.

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