Tigers lose Philly finale

“As has been the case all year, we battled back from a double-digit deficit again last night,” head coach Courtney Banghart said. “We showed enormous fight — our challenge next year will be to play with that same intensity for the entire game.”

The Quakers took the lead with the first basket and never trailed. The Tigers fell behind early when the Quakers put together a seven-point run to take a 15-6 lead 10 minutes into the first half. Princeton, however, refused to give up and cut the lead to two points at 19-17 with eight minutes, 33 seconds left in the half.

The Tigers finally knotted the score at 27 when senior forward and co-captain Meagan Cowher scored with just 34 seconds to play. The Quakers drained one more shot just before the end of the half and headed to the locker room with a meager two-point lead.

After trading buckets for the first seven minutes of the second half, Penn hit its stride again with a nine-point run, putting the score at 50-38 with 10:55 remaining. Princeton could not cut the margin and still trailed, 76-65, with just 1:40 to play, when two foul shots and a three-pointer from junior guard Jessica Berry kicked off a seven-point run that cut the margin to four. Berry struck again to cut the Quakers’ lead to three at 77-74 with 41 seconds to play, but the Tigers would not get any closer and ended their season with a seven-point loss.

Cowher led the game offensively with 31 points, a fitting end to her impressive four years as a Tiger. She is the Ivy League’s leading scorer for the second season in a row, and her total of 532 points this season is a new Princeton single-season record. She leaves Princeton in second place on the all-time scoring list with 1,671 points. Sandi Bittler ’90 tops the career list with 1,683 points.

Two Tigers joined Cowher in double digits against Penn. Freshman guard Addie Micir had 14 points, and Berry added 12. Senior forward Ali Prichard had five points.

Once again, it was the Tigers’ weak defense that kept them out of the game. Penn hit 58.7 percent of its shots to the Tigers’ 43.5 and also outrebounded Princeton, 32-27. The Quakers had four players in double digits, with guard Kim Adams leading the team with 28 points and forward Carrie Beimer adding 23 more.

“We simply did not have enough pride or take enough ownership on our positioning or concentration on the defensive side of the ball,” Banghart said. “When we lack speed, positioning and help-side rotations are critical. We did not consistently play team defense with energy or urgency, which was our Achilles heel all season long.”

Elsewhere in the league, the competition rages on. Princeton and Penn end the season in a two-way tie for sixth place, just behind a two-way tie for fourth place between Columbia (10-18, 7-7) and Yale (9-18, 7-7) and a three-way tie for first between Cornell (19-8, 11-3), Harvard (18-10, 11-3) and Dartmouth (14-14, 11-3). With a competitive field, a rocky defense and the graduation of the Ivy League’s best offensive threat, the Tigers have a lot to practice and think about as they rest up for the 2008-09 campaign.

“This season was just the beginning,” Banghart said. “As I told [the team] after the game, the expectations of everyone are now raised. Year number one is over. Quite simply, we all have to get better.”