The Penn women started their season very, very badly Thursday night at Marist, missing 10 of their first 11 shots.
Then Kayla Padilla reminded everyone why she’s the top scorer in the Ivies and a threat whenever the ball is in play. The senior guard sliced through the Marist defenders or shot over them for 31 points, and the Quakers held on to beat the Red Foxes, 65-61.
The win in Poughkeepsie came with a cost: Penn’s most outstanding addition from last season, forward Jordan Obi, went up for a rebound in the second quarter, came down with an injury to her lower left leg and was out for the rest of the night. That put more responsibility on what may be this season’s outstanding addition (and certainly the tallest one). Floor Toonders, the 6-foot-4 Dutch junior transfer from the University of Florida, played 33 minutes, picked up 14 rebounds, was disruptive on defense and contributed six points. Even when Obi returns, it’s clear that Toonders is the most likely to fill Kennedy Suttle’s shoes as the Quakers’ dominant rebounder.
Sophomore forward Stina Almqvist also worked well inside, matching eight rebounds with eight points — zip-for-3 from outside but 4-for-7 inside the arc. In fact, three-point land was hostile territory for every Penn player not named Padilla. You generally can’t win shooting 1-for-19 from beyond the arc. Padilla, though, went 3-for-7 from deep — and she fed fellow senior guard Mandy McGurk in the left corner for that other long basket, late in the game.
McGurk had 33 minutes on the court, and she might want to forget 32 of them. She has always been a scrappy player and a streaky shooter, and Thursday was not one of her better nights: 1-for-10 from the field, just one assist, and not even a steal to show for her aggressive defense. Yet McGurk was one of Penn’s heroes, calmly knocking down seven of eight free throws in the last 1:04 as Marist had to foul repeatedly for a chance at winning — and almost succeeded. With less than 40 seconds left, a smart defensive move by Almqvist was critical, as she anticipated a drive by Marist junior guard Kiara Fisher, moved across the lane, set her body and took the charge.
But the night belonged to Padilla, who scored 14 points in the second quarter (19 in the half) to lift the Quakers from a six-point deficit to a four-point lead at the break, a lead they never lost. Marist had no way to contain her.
For its part, Penn had trouble containing Marist’s best players. Guard Kendall Krick went 6-for-9 from deep for her 18 points and pulled down eight rebounds. Standout junior forward Zaria Shazer notched a dozen points, eight rebounds and five assists. And though Penn was mostly careful with the ball — just 10 turnovers to Marist’s 16 — the speedy Fisher intercepted four Penn passes and turned them all into buckets.
Penn is on the road again Sunday, this time to face Northwestern for the first time since November 2009. Those Quakers, like this year’s team, started the season badly, but they didn’t recover as quickly. The 2009 Northwestern game was a drubbing, the fifth of what would become 26 losses in coach Mike McLaughlin’s first season at Penn. The current Quakers still have plenty of question marks, but they have Padilla to provide the exclamation points for the win.