W. Hoops tries to spoil

The Penn women's basketball team had hoped to win the Ivy League title this season and advance to the NCAA Tournament. But if that goal were to prove unattainable, the team wanted to at least improve on its record from last season in the Ancient Eight. With only two weeks left in the season, Penn (7-14, 3-6 Ivy League) has been all but mathematically eliminated from the race for the title. And if the Quakers hope to better the 6-8 Ivy record they have posted in each of the last two years, they will need to realize time is running out. Penn will have to win four of its last five Ivy games to finish at .500 in the conference. The Quakers will play the first two of those five games this weekend when they travel north for a 7 p.m. game at Yale tonight and a 6 p.m. contest at Brown tomorrow. The reason Penn is now in this situation rather than competing for the title is because the Quakers have played erratically throughout the year. Coach Julie Soriero hopes the team will put an end to this tendency on the road this weekend. "What we are looking for, as far as the rest of the season is concerned, is consistency," Soriero said. "I think every team in the Ivy League really respects us and our ability to play, and they are probably fearful of our inconsistency. It's nice to know that no one is chalking us up in the win column or in the loss column. There is still a lot we can prove to the other Ivy League teams and to ourselves." Penn will have to be on top of its game this weekend, as both opponents have been strong in the Ivies all season long. Brown (13-8, 7-2) is tied with Dartmouth for the conference lead, and Yale (14-7, 6-3) is tied with Princeton one game back. The Quakers can beat both the Elis and Bears -- this fact was made clear when the two teams visited the Palestra just two weeks ago. Penn junior guard Katina Banks missed the front end of a one-and-one with one second remaining, and the Bears narrowly escaped with a 58-57 win. The Quakers rebounded and soundly defeated the Elis 71-55 the next night in what may have been their strongest performance this year. Against Yale tonight, Penn will look for a strong performance from Banks and her backcourt mate Shelly Bowers. Banks lit up the scoreboard for 22 points and Bowers chipped in 15 in the February 12 Quaker win. Penn will have to once again play tough at the defensive end of the court. This may have been the key to the first meeting as Yale shot only 26.7 percent from the floor. The Quakers will focus on junior forward Mary Kalich, who scored 16 points and grabbed 12 rebounds at the Palestra. She continued her quality play last weekend and was named to the Ivy League Honor Roll for her performance against Columbia and Cornell. In those two games, Kalich scored 42 points and had eight rebounds. Tomorrow night against Brown, Penn will once again face reigning Ivy League Player of the Year Martina Jerant. Jerant, a 6-foot-5 center, had one of the worst offensive outings of her career against Penn center Katarina Poulsen earlier this year. Jerant was in early foul trouble, picking up three fouls in the game's first eight minutes, and she finished with only three points while shooting 0 for 6 from the floor. Jerant and the Bears will most likely see plenty of zone defense tomorrow, as Soriero felt it helped to cause the Bears' problems. "We did a nice job in our zone," Soriero said after the February 12 game. "I think we did a nice job containing the inside, but also extending and pressuring on the outside so that the pass to [Jerant] was difficult. I don't think she saw the ball that much." And so the Quakers will head north looking for consistency and a few victories. They hope to play the role of spoiler as the other league teams claw it out for the Ivy title.