The Penn women’s basketball team took another few steps forward Thursday night at the Palestra but came up short in overtime, 72-68, against the University of California at Irvine.
Both sides were tantalizingly close to taking the win in regulation. With a bit more than five minutes left, a three-pointer on a fast break put Irvine up, 60-57. And as the next three minutes ticked away, neither team could score until Penn freshman forward Katie Collins took a pass from Saniah Caldwell and hit a three to tie the game again. A layup for Irvine was quickly followed by another Penn three, this one from freshman Ashna Tambe on a feed from Mataya Gayle. And that one-point Penn lead lasted through an excruciating 90 seconds of missed shots and turnovers for both sides until Irvine’s Hunter Hernandez missed one foul shot but sank the second with five seconds left to send the game into overtime.
The overtime was less dramatic. An Irvine layup by Summah Hanson and a rare missed free throw for Penn’s Stina Almqvist gave Irvine a one-point edge; two more buckets by Hanson made it a five-point lead. Gayle sank a three to cut the lead to two, but Irvine’s Hernandez responded with a jumper in the paint with 17 seconds left, and the two teams traded free throws as the clock ran down.
One night after a thorough drubbing at Villanova, the young Quakers — with big contributions from three freshmen — looked more capable and mature against UC Irvine’s Anteaters. (Yeah, it’s The Battle of the Unusually Named Sports Teams. It’s a nice break from Lions, Tigers, Hawks and Eagles.) Irvine, which won 23 games and reached the NCAA Tournament in March as the Big West champion, is a talented team once again and 5-1 in the new season. This was not going to be easy for Penn (3-3). The big question was whether it would be easy for Irvine.
For one thing, this was Penn’s fourth serious challenge in a five-game stretch, surely the toughest 12 days it will face this season. The Penn women hit the road to beat Maine (another March Madness participant last spring), came back home for an easy win against Siena, played well while losing to a clearly superior St. Joseph’s, had their clocks cleaned by Nova and one day later hosted Irvine.
And the two teams mirrored one another in many ways through a night of superior basketball. In each of the four full periods of play, neither team outscored the other by more than three points. Irvine had 46 rebounds to Penn’s 45; Penn had 19 assists on its 23 baskets to Irvine’s 15 on 26. Irvine edged Penn on shooting accuracy on the night, 38% to 34%, but Penn had the slight advantage from outside, 33% to 29%.
In 45 minutes of play, the lead changed 21 times. The score was tied 10 times. Nobody got to relax.
The biggest lead of the game belonged to Irvine — up by six in the third quarter largely because Penn missed seven shots in a row. Then Tambe, fresh off the bench, tied things up with a pair of threes, each off an assist by Gayle. Tambe, who scored more than 1,600 points in high school in Plano, Texas, hit double figures for the first time as a collegian: 10 points in 20 minutes, with 3-for-7 shooting and three rebounds.
The other Penn freshmen who made a difference: Collins (18 points on 7-for-15 shooting plus seven rebounds, two blocks and two steals) and guard Sarah Miller (two threes and two steals).
Penn’s other big scorer, as usual, was Almqvist, who came up just short of a double-double with 17 points and nine rebounds. Gayle, who took relatively few shots, was nonetheless effective with nine points and eight assists.
Hernandez, a junior guard, knocked down 20 points for Irvine; so did Hanson, a 6-foot-3 sophomore forward from Australia who had a double-double off the bench on 7-for-13 shooting with 10 rebounds.
The Quakers have one more game before Thanksgiving, an exhibition at home against Immaculata. The Mighty Macs are 4-1 and will always be legends in women’s basketball for their three straight national championships half a century ago. But in 2024, they are a Division III team.