Two teams that knew they had to win to have a chance at Ivy Madness played some of their best basketball of the year Wednesday, but the Penn women played a bit better than Cornell and came away with the victory in Ithaca, 70-57.
That may sound like a comfortable win for the Quakers, but it was anything but.
The two teams traded the lead 10 times, with six ties, and neither side built more than a seven-point lead (for Cornell) until Penn expanded the margin with foul shots in the final minutes. Penn took a one-point lead to finish the first quarter, Cornell took a one-point lead into halftime and Penn led by a point at the end of the third quarter.
That first quarter was sublime, no matter which team you love, or whether you just love women’s basketball. Cornell stirred up its home crowd by shooting 47% from the field for 21 points, but Penn hit 56% for 22. Those numbers aren’t sustainable for mere mortals, and neither team averages more than 65 points a game. Both returned to form, shooting 39% (Penn) vs. 37% (Cornell) for the evening. The quality of the play remained high, though, with good ball movement on both sides to create good looks. Penn’s defense was tenacious, as usual, but Cornell can rate this game as a season highlight, behind its wins against Albany and Harvard.
Penn junior guard Kayla Padilla, after an off night of scoring against Brown on Saturday (but 11 assists), was back to her usual form against Cornell, leading all scorers with 25 points, including 4-for-7 shooting from long distance. She put Penn ahead with the final eight points of the third quarter. Senior Mia Lakstigala, after a career high of 21 points against Brown, had 16 at Cornell. And senior forward Kennedy Suttle matched her career high with 17 rebounds, 11 of them on the offensive end.
The Red relied, as usual, on senior forward Theresa Grace Mbanefo, who leads the team with points and rebounds, and who came through once again with a double-double: 14 points (on 7-for-10 shooting) and 11 rebounds. Guards Ania McNicholas and Kaya Ingram added 11 and 10 points, respectively.
The Quakers (11-13, 6-6 Ivy) had to take the unusual four-hour road trip for a midweek contest because of an earlier postponement, but they would have to rate it five stars, would visit again: With the win, Penn is tied with Harvard for fourth place in the league. A tie won’t be good enough to get the Quakers into Ivy Madness: The first tiebreaker is games against one another, and Penn and Harvard split their head-to-head matchups. The second tiebreaker is games against higher-placed teams (Princeton, Columbia and Yale): Harvard split its games with Yale, but Penn lost to Yale twice. Harvard still faces Princeton and Dartmouth, but unless it loses both, Penn must win both of its remaining games — at home Saturday against Dartmouth, and then March 4 at Princeton.
Cornell (9-14, 4-8) finishes its season with two more tough contests, at Yale on Saturday and at home against Columbia on March 4.