So was the Penn women’s victory over Columbia a mirage? Was that 11-game winning streak a fluke?
No, but the loss at Princeton reflects the Quakers’ inconsistency.
Michaela Stanfield
Princeton women stymie Penn, 55-40
Our George “Toothless Tiger” Clark delivers a courtside report following Princeton women’s basketball’s shutdown of Penn at Jadwin Gym Monday afternoon:
Penn women romp over Gwynedd Mercy in pre-Ivy warmup
Coaches have plenty of good reasons for scheduling events like the Penn women’s Friday afternoon game — let’s not call it a contest — against Gwynedd Mercy at the Palestra. Drama just isn’t one of them.
Let’s get the basics out of the way: Penn 95, G. Mercy 38. The Quakers put 17 players on the court (no, not all at once), and 16 of them scored. The Penn reserves outscored the Penn starters, who in turn outscored Gwynedd Mercy, which to be fair played well for a Division III team facing a bigger, faster, more talented Division I team.
Penn women fall at Bucknell in last game of suspensions
Half a team, half a team, half a team onward! So rode the Penn women into Bucknell, and like the Light Brigade before them, they lost convincingly Friday night, 62-46.
This was the Quakers’ eighth game of the season, and it completed the rolling four-game suspensions that each of the juniors and seniors on the squad had to serve for violating an unspecified university rule. Sitting out this time were five women who have started multiple games this season: Sydnei Caldwell, Mia Lakstigala, Mandy McGurk, Kayla Padilla and Kennedy Suttle. They watched from the bench, and their absence on the floor was obvious.
The eight Quakers who took on a capable Bucknell team struggled in some key ways: shooting just 30% from the floor, including a hopeless 3-for-17 from three-point range; committing 18 turnovers that yielded Bucknell 23 points (while getting just two points from Bucknell turnovers); and failing to stop backdoor passes and drives that gave Bucknell 32 points in the paint.