AT COURTSIDE: Gabriel's fourth foul spells doom

For Penn fans, it was deja vu all over again. With the Quakers holding to a one-point lead with a little over eight minutes left, their star picks up a fourth foul on a reach and goes to the bench. Four minutes later Penn is down by eight and the game is out of reach. Sound familiar? It was certainly reminiscent. But, last Thursday the Quakers' star was senior captain Julie Gabriel. In last night's 69-59 Big 5 loss at the hands of the Villanova Wildcats, it appeared that as went Gabriel, so went the Quakers. The forward had led Penn to three wins in its last four games and received Big 5 Player of the Week honors for two consecutive weeks. Over this period, she has averaged 15.7 points and 11.7 rebounds per game. With every performance, she keeps getting better. On the merits of her 18-point, 14-rebound performance at the Civic Center last night, she will be a strong candidate again this week. Despite her individual performance, when Gabriel was forced to the bench and Villanova increased its defensive intensity, Penn was unable to respond. The Quakers were unable to pick up their second-ever win against the Wildcats and unable to notch their first two-win Big 5 campaign in history. The Quakers had gained respect, but not a "W." "We were in the game for the entire time and for us, that's a big step," Gabriel said. "They weren't planning on coming in here and walking over us. In the four years that I've been here, this is definitely the most competitive that we've been. That is definitely positive for the program." Gabriel and her frontcourt mates Shelly Dieterle and Katarina Poulsen staked Penn to a 32-31 halftime lead by scoring 24 of those 32 points and grabbing 15 boards. With just over nine minutes left, a Poulsen three-point play gave the Quakers a three-point margin. Moments later Gabriel picked up her fourth foul and went to the bench. She would later foul out. From that point on, the Penn frontline scored only two points and the Quakers were outscored 19-6. "Julie's leaving had a huge impact," Penn coach Julie Soriero said. "She's such a multi-faceted player that it really limits what we can do when she's not on the court. Not only does it take things away offensively, but our defense struggled." Did it ever. The Wildcats scored on three-straight possessions shortly after, with four of the points coming from Denise Dillon, whom Gabriel had been guarding. "Without Gabriel, we didn't seem to match up as aggressively or effectively," Soriero said. As a result of this slight alteration, Villanova seemed much more efficient in executing its half-court offense. The Wildcat scorers seemed to get the ball in better positions and had unchallenged looks at the basket. Where the Penn defenses had been extending out to 15 feet consistently through the first 30 minutes, the middle-range jumpers were open in the closing moments. "Against their zones, we had a lot of open people all night," Villanova coach Harry Perretta said. "But until the end of the game we weren't recognizing those people early enough or delivering the ball to them in positions where they were comfortable shooting from." It seemed that the only place Penn was comfortable shooting all night was in the paint. The Quakers outscored the Wildcats by a staggering 34-6 margin inside, including 15 second-chance points to Villanova's two. From the outside, however, Penn's artillery was no more accurate than Iraqi Scuds. The Quakers were 0 for 8 from three-point land and shot a miserable 37 percent on the evening. Perhaps none of this would have mattered had it not been for that dreaded fourth foul. Perhaps Gabriel and her scoring, her defense, her rebounding and her leadership would have been enough. But, as Gabriel dejectedly left the floor, it seemed that the Quakers' chances for its first ever two-win season in Big 5 history slipped out of reach. Penn was left encouraged by another strong performance against a challenging opponent, but also with lingering thoughts of what could have been.