It might be time to say it out loud: The Penn women are back.
You can’t blame them if they were a bit jittery Saturday as they faced Columbia. The top-ranked team in the Ivies was visiting the Palestra with a roster full of scorers, a gaudy record and a fresh overtime win at Princeton.
Turns out Columbia should have been nervous as well.
This was a tight game from start to finish, and Penn beat Columbia, 71-67. That’s a nine-game winning streak for the Quakers (10-5, 3-0 Ivy and tops in the league), and it ends a program-record nine-game streak for the Lions (12-3, 2-1).
Junior forward Jordan Obi was one major reason. On offense, particularly in the second half, she maneuvered and muscled through the paint for contested shots, making herself a magnet for fouls. (Columbia coach Megan Griffith later lamented the string of fouls with which her players opened the fourth quarter, ensuring that they would be in the bonus the rest of the game.) And though Columbia is the Ivies’ top rebounding team and held the edge Saturday after amassing 21 offensive rebounds, Obi led all players with 13 rebounds — “a monster on the boards,” teammate Kayla Padilla called her — and 24 points. Obi canned the game’s first points with a layup, and it was only appropriate that it was her rebound and then two foul shots that sealed the win with two seconds on the clock.
It was a hell of a basketball game. The teams traded the lead eight times, with the score 35-34 for Columbia at the half. Columbia led by as much as 10 in the third quarter — but Penn clawed back and reclaimed the lead by a point when Padilla snared a long defensive rebound and raced downcourt for a layup in the last minute of the quarter. The Quakers never had a comfortable lead, no more than five points in the final quarter, and Columbia led by as much as four, at 67-63 with 3:43 left on a driving layup by guard Jaida Patrick.
But the last eight points were all Penn: a Padilla drive that drew contact for the and-one, two Obi free throws for the lead at 68-67, a crucial block by Penn forward Floor Toonders on a Columbia layup attempt, a Mandy McGurk foul shot and the final pair for Obi.
Toonders had 11 points along with five rebounds and four blocks. And Padilla, as usual, picked up the burden on scoring when others were missing, with 21 points on an 8-for-18 night, plus five rebounds and four assists.
The Lions were sharp and relentless in passing — getting 20 assists on their 27 baskets, vs. 12 of 25 for Penn — and racked up 20 points on turnovers (vs. six for Penn). Senior forward Kaitlyn Davis and junior Paige Lauder, coming off the bench, had 14 points apiece to lead the Lions, and Davis had five assists. Abbey Hsu had 12 points, all on threes, and five assists. For a team whose five starters all average in double figures, it was a below-average night — but nobody would mistake it for a below-average team.
Penn wraps up its unusual 10-game home stand with games Tuesday night against Hartford (0-15) and Saturday afternoon against Dartmouth (2-15, 0-3); the Quakers should take an 11-game winning streak with them when they travel to Princeton on the 16th. Columbia, meanwhile, will host Harvard on Saturday and travel to Cornell two days later. And you can bet the Lions have February 3 circled on their calendars, when they will try to show the Quakers an exciting time in Morningside Heights.