W. Hoops drops one to 'Nova

Quakers can't keep pace in final nine minutes For the first 32 minutes of last Thursday's contest, the Penn women's basketball team had itself believing it was going to accomplish something the Quakers had done only once in 20 previous outings against Villanova – win. Then senior co-captain Julie Gabriel picked up her fourth personal foul. With Gabriel, who has twice been named Big 5 Player of the Week, sidelined, the rest of the team could not pick up the scoring punch. The Wildcats exploded for a 19-8 run over the course of the game's final eight minutes and distanced themselves from the Quakers, holding on for a 69-59 victory which was closer than the score made it appear. "As far as leadership was concerned, we really missed having Julie on the floor," junior point guard Shelly Bowers said. "We had to go with a younger lineup and we weren't as effective. I don't think we were as aggressive as we could have been. She was having a great game for us." The contest was much closer than the final 10-point margin would seem to indicate. Penn (1-3 Big 5, 4-9 overall) jumped out of the gates quickly with two Bowers jumpers keying a 6-0 run to start the game. After Villanova (2-2, 8-7) evened the score at eight, the lead changed hands several times before a pair of Gabriel free throws helped give the Quakers a 32-31 halftime advantage. Heading into intermission Penn enjoyed added confidence due to the foul situation -- something which eventually came back to haunt the Quakers. While hauling down 10 rebounds on her way to a game-high 14 boards, Gabriel had picked up only a single foul in the game's first 20 minutes. Meanwhile three key Wildcat players all were in foul trouble at halftime. "It felt great that we could hang with them," Penn coach Julie Soriero said. "I was also happy that we weren't in foul trouble and they were, but they played really smart -- especially down the stretch. They did a good job helping each other out." In the second half, the Quakers turned to their other co-captain to set the tone. With Gabriel eventually getting into foul trouble, senior center Katarina Poulsen poured in 13 of her 19 points to go along with grabbing 8 of her 11 rebounds. Poulsen also made her presence felt on the defensive end, as she altered several Villanova shots in the paint. The play of the game's leading scorer was instrumental in leading to Penn's astonishing 34-6 advantage in points in the paint. This was a particularly impressive statistic, as the Wildcat frontcourt is clearly the strength of the Villanova team. "I think we were satisfied with the level of play we achieved with the exception of the final minutes of the second half," Bowers said. "We showed a lot of maturity. We just have to concentrate on maintaining that level of play." The problem for the Quakers was that Penn was unable to duplicate its inside success from long range. The Quakers failed to connect on any of their eight three-point attempts, while the Wildcats shot 6 for 15 from beyond the stripe. Villanova consistently knocked down the open jumper, as center Denise Dillon's outside range extended the Quaker defense as well as the Wildcat lead late in the game. Additionally, Villanova's defensive pressure forced Penn into 17 turnovers. At the same time, the Wildcats handled the ball well consistently as they only gave it up eight times. "I think we got a little frustrated on offense," Gabriel said. "They picked it up defensively and things weren't falling for us. They got a lot of open shots and they were making theirs." Despite Villanova's success shooting the jumper, Penn still clung to a 51-50 lead before Gabriel was sidelined at 8:25 with her fourth foul. When she returned to the floor with 4:08 to play the outcome had been decided -- as the scoreboard showed a 61-53 Wildcat advantage. From that point the Quakers could not gain any ground and Villanova's experience proved to be the difference down the stretch. Playing for the first time without freshman forward Deana Lewis, who is out with a season-ending injury, Penn's bench amassed only a single point. The Quakers could have used Lewis to provide some much needed depth and firepower off the bench. "We were real positive," Gabriel said. "I think we played real hard. I don't want to take anything away from us, just because we ended up on the downside. We slacked the last few minutes." Despite coming up empty in its final Big 5 battle of the season, Penn was quite pleased with the way it performed in the City Series as a whole. Although the Quakers were only able to post a 1-3 record, Penn was competitive in each of its Big 5 games. This is a big improvement for a program which has historically had trouble matching up with the city's other squads. "I think we could have come out of the Big 5 with a little better record than we did," Gabriel said. "In the four years that I've been here, this is definitely the most competitive that we've been. That's real positive for the program." So was almost knocking off a team that Penn has not beaten since 1975.