When the Dartmouth women went to West Philly to play some basketball in January, they were at their best and broke an 18-game losing streak against Penn.
On Friday, it was the Penn women at their best, playing in Hanover to keep their shot at the Ivy League Tournament alive, and they started a new winning streak over Dartmouth emphatically, 66-37.
The Quakers dominated from start to finish, from inside and outside. By the time Dartmouth scored its first basket (to go with a few free throws), the first quarter was more than half over and Penn had 16 points. Dartmouth never trailed by less than 10 points after that first quarter, and it was down by as much as 33.
Penn hit 44% from the field, 30% on threes, to Dartmouth’s 23% and 22%.
Shooting wasn’t the only dramatic difference. Penn, always a defense-minded team, committed eight steals and prevented Dartmouth from establishing itself inside. Though Dartmouth had a height advantage, Penn scored 36 points in the paint, to just 12 for the Big Green.
As she so often does, senior Stina Almqvist led the scoring: 24 points on 11-for-19 shooting plus 10 rebounds. When she’s in or near the paint, Almqvist becomes a 6-foot-1 Swedish Gumby, twisting in seemingly impossible ways to launch reverse layups or scoop shots while her defenders flail at her or jump in the wrong direction. Almqvist also collected four assists.
Freshman Katie Collins, the presumptive Ivy Rookie of the Year for Penn, also had another double-double: 14 points on 6-for-16 shooting, including a pair of threes, and 10 rebounds. And last year’s Ivy rookie of the year, point guard Mataya Gayle, contributed nine assists – three more than the whole Dartmouth team.
For Dartmouth, senior guard Victoria Page and junior forward Clare Meyer were effective but not sufficient. Page scored a dozen points and Meyer 10, plus seven rebounds.
The win puts Penn (15-10, 6-6 Ivies) one step closer to the fourth spot in Ivy Madness, along with the top three of (in some order) Columbia, Princeton and Harvard. The problem is that Penn’s final two games are against Harvard (Saturday) and Princeton (a week later), while Brown (10-15, 4-8) plays lower-ranked Cornell and Yale. So Penn can’t guarantee itself a tournament ticket unless it beats Harvard or Princeton. But that’s not out of the question if it plays as well as it did against Dartmouth.