After strong start, w. basketball fizzles at Penn, losing by 11

For a team picked last in the league in a media poll, the women's basketball team (3-10 overall, 0-1 Ivy League) exceeded expectations by staying close with Penn until the final minutes in both team's Ivy League opener Friday night. When the final buzzer sounded, however, Penn (6-5, 1-0) was on top, 65-54.

Princeton came charging out of the gate early, as two threes from freshman post Katy Digovich gave the team an early 6-0 lead. The Quakers couldn't find the net until the five-minute mark, when senior Jewel Clark sunk a jumper for Penn's first two points. The stunned Quaker crowd watched the Tigers build their lead to 14-4 and then 18-6.

"We shot really well in the first few minutes, and when we didn't turn the ball over, we were able to score," senior captain Mary Cate Opila said.

That 12-point advantage soon dissolved as the Quakers made a charge of their own. Taking advantage of Princeton's 11 first-half turnovers, Penn made use of its game behind the arc to close the gap.

Clark tied the game at 25, and soon afterwards teammate Karen Habrukowich hit one of her four threes to give the Quakers a 28-25 lead. Penn held onto a narrow 30-28 advantage going into the break.

"I would say we were only satisfied with the first 10 minutes," Digovich said of the first half.

In the second half, the Tigers were able to rein in Clark from the field, holding her to just one-for-three. Princeton's late-game foul trouble, however, allowed Clark to maintain her stellar average of 19.5 points per game. She did serious damage from the free-throw line, earning 10 of her 20 total points on the charity stripe.

Although the Tigers scored the first four points of the second half, the Quakers successfully avoided a repeat of the early first half. Princeton and Penn exchanged the lead several times over the next dozen minutes.

With the score in the Tigers' favor at 48-45, things began to crumble for Princeton. The Tigers' foul trouble allowed Clark and others to pull the Quakers even and then surge ahead.

The game ended in the Quakers' largest lead of the night, as they won by 11.

Penn dominated possession in the final minutes and also tightened its defense to squeeze the life out of the Tiger offense. Princeton couldn't find a way to the basket — in the last eight minutes of the game, it scored a grand total of zero field goals.

"I think one of the biggest factors in the last 10 minutes was that we didn't respond well to the defensive pressure of Penn," Digovich said. "They really started to extend out on us, and we should have driven to the basket, but instead we just swung the ball around the perimeter and looked to pass."

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Opila attributed the team's late-game woes to poor choices made under pressure.

"I think one of our biggest problems as a team was decision making," she said. "It's just a question of thinking choices through more and not letting the pressure of situations effect your thought process."

The Tigers have yet to put together a solid 40 minutes of basketball, according to head coach Richard Barron, though they have shown many moments of excellence. The team admits it would have been nice to open the league season with a win, but there were many things to build on in Friday's contest, including Digovich's 20 points and freshman wing Casey Lockwood's double-double of 14 points and 10 rebounds.

"I think it helped to show the freshmen that we are able to compete in the league," Opila said.