On Friday night, under the bright lights of Jadwin Gymnasium, women’s basketball (19–2 overall, 7–1 Ivy League) defeated Penn (13–8, 3–5) for the second time this season, their 16th win in a row against the Quakers. Like their previous game at Cornell, the Tigers were led by junior guards Skye Belker and Olivia Hutcherson, whose scores combined for 35 points.
The Tigers had a solid start in the first quarter. Senior forward Taylor Charles and sophomore guard Toby Nweke started in place of the typical junior guards Fadima Tall and Ashley Chea, despite the latter two being uninjured during the game. Star senior guard Madison St. Rose also returned to the starting lineup, having missed the previous game with a knee injury.
After the Ivy League adversaries had traded a few buckets, Penn made the mistake of giving St. Rose space on the perimeter. She launched one from around four feet behind the three-point line that splashed through the net, emphatically announcing to the roaring crowd that she was back.
With the Tigers up 26–17 in the second quarter, the Quakers started to make a run. Too many turnovers from the Tigers and a lack of defensive intensity gave Penn the opportunity, which junior guard Mataya Gayle seized, putting up eight points in a 13–2 Penn run to close the half. The 5’7” guard dealt with starkly unfavorable size matchups all night, but thanks to her strong performance, Penn was up 30–28.
The Tigers, however, were not going to go away.
“I think that when we came back into the locker room after the second quarter, we were not very happy with how we were playing,” Nweke told The Daily Princetonian postgame. “Then we just got to the locker room, and we thought that we’re going to turn it up defensively and make good passes… make good reads on offense, because we were taking kind of rough shots.”
That’s exactly what the Tigers did in the third quarter. They reached another defensive level, with Nweke in particular a menace on that end, serving as a formidable challenge for whoever had the misfortune of being guarded by her.
On offense, Belker got hot from three-point range. And Hutcherson, who was making great plays but had to that point struggled to finish in transition, started to make good on her opportunities. When Tall hit a three, grabbed a rebound on the other end, and then bullied her way to a two on the next possession, Penn called a timeout, trying to stop the bleeding as Princeton had suddenly surged to a 10-point lead.
The Tigers didn’t let up in the fourth quarter. Penn struggled to get much going offensively, as Princeton held them to just seven points in the quarter. Hutcherson continued to impress, grabbing boards and scoring in the paint. And when Belker dribbled out the clock to an ovation, the Tigers had put together a dominant 69–51 victory after being behind to start the third quarter.
Head coach Carla Berube had a lot of praise for her players after the game.
“She was incredible on both ends of the floor,” she said of Hutcherson to the ‘Prince.’ “Her shot looks better this year; she’s able to get to her mid-range, [her] pull-up looks good.”
When asked about Hutcherson’s 19-point performance, Berube said with a smile, “Yeah, and if she finished in transition, it would be even more.”
On Nweke, Berube was also laudatory: “Her game keeps elevating, and with her confidence, she’s a real threat out there.”
That belief has helped Nweke develop her game. “I felt that my coaches had given me the confidence, and my teammates had been giving me the confidence,” Nweke told the ‘Prince’ postgame of her mindset. “I feel like this year I’ve been able to prove a little bit of what I can do.”
However, not every Tiger’s performance was so sterling. In her 23 minutes, Ashley Chea mustered only two points on five shots and was visibly upset with herself after the game. St. Rose’s game was in no way a poor one, but with a brace on her left leg, her movement did appear to be affected. Despite this, Berube reassured that “nothing structurally went wrong” when she went down with the injury a week before.
In spite of any concerns, the Tigers can be proud of and encouraged by this win. Zooming out on the arc of this Princeton season, it will serve more as a prelude to their rematch against Columbia away this Friday, whom they fell to at home last week, losing their 15-game winning streak. The Tigers are by no means daunted by the prospect of playing the Lions again.
“We know we’re going to see every team’s best,” said Nweke. “So coming in, starting off hot, starting off strong, it’s just something that we’ve been trying to harp on this whole year. As soon as we start the game, [we need to] impose our will and not let ourselves get dominated, especially in the beginning of the game,” she continued.
“Looking forward to next Friday, absolutely,” Berube said of the coming rematch. “We have two days off. It’s nice playing on a Friday, and then you can have two days of rest, watch the Patriots win the Super Bowl, and then get back to work,” the Massachusetts native said with another grin.
Julian Benkin Danoff is a Sports contributor for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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