W. Hoops comes c;ose, but is swept on road

There's something about Brown that almost brings out the best in the Penn women's basketball team. The best, because Penn has come extraordinarily close to beating the league-leading Bears twice this year. And almost, because both times the Quakers lost. Saturday's 57-55 loss in Providence and Friday's 64-55 loss at Yale dropped Penn to 3-8 in the Ivy League and 7-16 overall. In both games, the Quakers stayed close until faltering late. In the Brown game, the Bears (15-8, 9-2) went ahead 48-38 with just more than eight minutes to play, but an 11-1 run by the Quakers tied the score at 49. Brown went up by four with 48 seconds left and had possession of the ball, but a Kathy Hill foul sent Penn junior guard Katina Banks to the line for a one-and-one. Banks missed, but a Quaker rebound led to a layup by junior guard Shelly Bowers to cut the Bear lead to two. But Penn was unable to regain the ball before time expired. "When you're down 10 against the league champions, it's real easy to fold, but we fought back to tie it," Penn coach Julie Soriero said. "It's a real tribute to our character, especially on the second night of an Ivy weekend." In the Yale game, Penn was as close as 34-32 just into the second half before the Elis (15-8, 7-4) pulled away. For the entire weekend, though, the hallmark of the Quakers' play was defense. Penn held Brown to a paltry 27 percent from the field in the first half, and only 36 for the game. Although Yale's shooting percentage was higher, at 47 percent, the Quakers outrebounded the Elis 34-27. "We were on the verge of winning both games," Soriero said. "We did a good job defensively, but our offense fell short. We need to make the big shots." One person making the big shots was Banks, who was 6 of 8 for 14 points against Yale. "I was just getting open shots," Banks said. "When we had possession, we weren't taking as good care of the ball as we could. But when we started to run the offense, the ball just kept coming to me." Against Brown, Banks had 13 points and 11 rebounds. Those rebounding numbers are one of the reasons Penn was able to hang with a much bigger Bear team on the boards. Both of Penn's co-captains were big on the glass, with senior center Katarina Poulsen grabbing 11 rebounds, and senior forward Julie Gabriel nine. "We did a real good job matching up with Brown," Banks said. "[Michelle] Pagliaro and [Martina] Jerant are their go-to players, and we did a nice job against them, Kat especially." Poulsen had a big weekend in general, scoring 18 and blocking three shots in each game. She was so hard to stop against Brown that Jerant, Pagliaro and Hill were all in foul trouble. Bowers had 13 points against Brown and six assists against Yale, and Gabriel had 11 against the Elis. And although freshman guard Erica McCauley was held scoreless against Yale, and had only six points against Brown, Soriero lauded her performance. "Erica McCauley had a couple of really good games," Soriero said. "It may not show in the stats, but she came off the bench and gave us some really good floor leadership." When all is considered, the fact remains that all chances of finishing at .500 in the Ivies have disappeared, and the final three games, beginning with Princeton tomorrow night, are against teams that have already beaten the Quakers. Perhaps, then, the weekend's final comment is best left to Banks: "It was great we played so well," she said, "but just one win would have been much better."