This should not have been an easy game for Penn women’s basketball.
This is a challenging year in which the team is trying to regain a spot among the Ivy leaders, projected to repeat in finishing outside the top half of the league. Thursday night’s opponent, Stony Brook, has a winning record and beat the Quakers a year ago.
But even before some fans had gotten into their Palestra seats, Penn had streaked to a 17-2 lead, and the game was never even close after that, ending at 73-53. Like La Salle two nights earlier, Stony Brook was beset by turnovers and by Penn’s adept ball movement to find the best shot.
It’s an oddly hopeful sign for the Quakers that, on this night, senior guard Kayla Padilla, who has owned the top spot in Ivy scoring for pretty much her whole career, didn’t record her first basket until midway through the third quarter.
Penn would have won without Padilla’s seven points — but not without her. She was more valuable for her nine rebounds and seven assists. So was it hot-shooting freshman Simone Sawyer who dominated the scoring? Not so much, though she did contribute a dozen points on 4-for-11 shooting and looked impressive with her quick-releasing three-pointers. It was the third starting guard, senior Mandy McGurk, who was the team’s high scorer for a change: a career-high 18 points on 6-for-12 shooting (four of them from deep) as well as five rebounds and three steals.
Up front, forwards Jordan Obi and Floor Toonders were effective on both ends of the court. Obi, who had enjoyed her best game of the year against La Salle, notched 16 points Thursday on 8-for-16 shooting, with five rebounds, a block and two steals. Toonders recorded her first double-double (11 points, 11 rebounds) and rejected three Stony Brook shots. Penn had a 42-35 advantage on rebounds. But the difference that counted was on shots going in: 46% for the Quakers, 36% for the Sea Wolves (great name!), and an even bigger discrepancy for three-pointers (41% vs. 19%).
Penn (3-5) did not look like a team that will have a losing record for long against Stony Brook (4-3), and it can hit the break-even point next week with games at the Palestra against Bucknell (Tuesday) and St. Francis of Brooklyn (Thursday).