Alyssa Moreland powers Brown women’s basketball past Penn

Just days after hitting career highs to beat Dartmouth, Brown junior forward Alyssa Moreland exceeded those marks in overpowering Penn, 65-57, Friday night in Providence.
Moreland was pretty much unstoppable inside, racking up 25 points and 18 rebounds while shooting 10-for-19. And classmate Grace Arnolie matched her output from outside, with 25 points on 8-for-12 shooting, including a devastating 4-for-5 on threes. The rest of the Brown Bears hit just one of their 17 shots from beyond the arc, but Moreland and Arnolie were enough to beat the Red and Blue.

It’s hard to call a game at the end of January a must-win, but this was close to it. With the Columbia, Princeton and Harvard women dominating the top three spots in the conference, the serious race is for the fourth slot in the Ivy League Tournament, which this year moves to Providence. Brown lost out to Penn for that slot last year, and this year Brown seems determined to play as well as host. With the loss at Brown as well as an early loss to Dartmouth, Penn faces a hard climb to Ivy Madness.

As befits a crucial game between two well-matched rivals, this was a back-and-forth contest till the final minutes, with seven ties and nine lead changes. Penn led by as much as five, in the second period, and Brown never by more than 10. Penn, always a defensive-minded team under coach Mike McLaughlin, committed nine steals and hounded Brown into 17 turnovers, to 12 for Penn. But it was Brown that capitalized more, with 21 points off turnovers to Penn’s 14. And Brown dominated the boards, with 49 rebounds to Penn’s 36.

The Quakers seemed determined to live or die from deep: Most of their shots (35 of 68) were from behind the arc — and only 20% went in. The Brown Bears were barely better, at 22%, but they more than made up for it inside, thanks largely to Moreland.
For Penn, junior guard Simone Sawyer had another strong game, with 14 points on 5-for-11 shooting, eight rebounds and a pair of steals. Sawyer seems to be reinventing herself again: She burst onto the scene in her freshman season as a sharpshooting three-point specialist, then went silent in scoring but made herself valuable as a shark on defense. Now she has rediscovered her shot without forgetting how to terrorize opposing offenses.
Freshman forward Katie Collins had a near-double-double: nine points and nine rebounds, along with a block and four steals. And senior Stina Almqvist, who struggled to contain Moreland, finished with 12 points, six rebounds and three blocks.
Penn (10-9, 1-5 Ivy) moves next to New Haven and needs to beat struggling Yale (2-17, 1-5) on Saturday to stay relevant in the race for Ivy Madness, while Brown (10-9, 4-2) hosts Princeton (14-5, 5-1).

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