W. Hoops looking for revenge in first game

The Penn women's basketball team has two main goals for the 2000-01 season. One is to improve on its second-place finish in the Ivy League from last season. The other is to win two Big 5 games for the first time since 1975. The Quakers start chasing that goal tomorrow afternoon, and it won't be easy. Penn will be on the road, facing the toughest team on its entire schedule, a team that the Red and Blue have never beaten. The St. Joseph's Hawks have beaten Penn, and beaten Penn soundly, for years. The Hawks topped the Red and Blue by 46 points three years ago; by 19 two years ago. Last year's game was a particularly ugly affair at the Palestra, as the Hawks trounced Penn, 76-47. In that game, Diana Caramanico may have had her worst game ever with the Red and Blue. Under a triple-team for most of the night, Caramanico was held to 12 points on 5-of-15 shooting from the floor. This time, though, Penn will be ready for the Hawks defense to concentrate on Caramanico. "St. Joe's pretty much says no one else can score on their team," Penn coach Kelly Greenberg said. "Even last year with Mandy [West], they triple-teamed [Caramanico], which is gonna help us [this time]." Greenberg is confident that her team will be more poised against the threat of a triple-team on its star this time around because the Quakers have been practicing against that eventuality. "I expect that Harvard will do that, and Dartmouth," Greenberg said. "We just have to learn what we can do out of it. Di's got to read it, kick it out, and then re-post. We do it in practice a lot -- double, triple-team her and see what she does." With the clamps down on the two-time Ivy League Player of the Year, the Quakers will need to get scoring from other sources, namely the backcourt. This did not happen in last year's contest. West shot 6-for-14 from the floor for 15 points, five below her season average. But the truly telling statistics were next to Erin Ladley's name. Ladley only took two shots in 25 minutes of action against the Hawks last season, and she missed both. Tara Twomey also put up a goose egg that night, shooting 0-for-2 in 22 minutes off the bench. Jen Jones was a little better. She scored six points, but on 3-for-10 shooting. Penn shot an anemic 3-for-18 from downtown. The numbers don't lie, and they added up to a 29-point Hawks romp. News and Notes Penn won its opening game last season. The Quakers defeated Temple, 79-50.... One bright spot for Penn in last year's game was Julie Epton, who scored a then-career-high 14 points to go along with seven rebounds... Caramanico needs 20 points to break the all-time Penn scoring record for men and women. The record of 1,827 is held by Ernie Beck, who played from 1950-53.

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