Quakers fall to Explorers

W. Hoops needs more depth Two very different women's basketball teams traveled to St. Joseph's last night. The first was a bedraggled Penn squad, already down two players after a tough Thanksgiving tournament. Its opponent, La Salle, awaited its first contest of the season with youthful confidence, ready to take on the senior-dominated Quakers. When the elbows stopped flying, the Quakers fell, 75-64 at Alumni Fieldhouse. The game was a tale of opposites. From the opening tip, Penn (0-3, 0-1 Big 5) seemed to have regained confidence. The Explorers (1-0, 1-0) came into the game like overeager kids, their full-court press easily exploited by the veteran Quakers. "I don't think we played intelligently in the first half," La Salle head coach John Miller said. "We came out with too much initial intensity and consequently I don't think we played well defensively. We played hard, maybe overaggressively in the first half." The Explorers' tough play drew nine fouls in the first half to only two by the Quakers. This cost La Salle -- Penn shot 75 percent from the line. As the game progressed, La Salle grew stronger while fatigue began to tax the Penn starters. The contest was up-tempo, more to the style of the Explorers, who have a stronger bench. The Quakers barely called for backup. Senior guards Shelly Bowers and Katina Banks played the full half and senior forward Shelly Dieterle sat for only a minute. Senior co-captain Natasha Rezek seemed mired in a slump for most of the first half, missing several open shots on her way to 14 points in 37 minutes of play. "We were patient on offense," Rezek said. "We set up our offenses and ran them. We waited for screens, we set them properly, and we looked for the open man." La Salle did not seem to expect that tough of a contest from the Quakers. However, the score was tied at 38 by halftime. "I looked at the score a couple of times," La Salle forward Chrissie Donahue said. "It seemed like we had just run off like five or six points and the score was tied. It was something in the back of my mind, like, 'What's going on?' " La Salle's O'Hara High trio was in fine form. Donahue and sophomore guards Ann Gallagher and Marnie McBreen combined for 37 points and 11 boards. Called "a nice plus," by Miller, they managed to find each other in traffic. "In the second half, we settled down," Miller said. "The difference in the game was the second half. We played a lot better defensively. We played just as hard, but we played intelligently." The Quakers emerged from the locker room energized. Unfortunately for Penn, La Salle did the same, and the Explorers were able to hold onto their energy. After a television timeout with 15 minutes, 33 seconds remaining, La Salle put in 10 unanswered points for a 16-0 run that put the Quakers out of the game. Lack of consistency cost Penn dearly last night. After an amazing 57.7 percent shooting performance in the first half, the Quakers' accuracy dropped to 32.1 percent in the second. "We just got flustered," said Bowers, who moved back to point guard after Erica McCauley broke her hand during a tournament at Colorado State. "We let their defensive pressure get to us and we took it down on the offensive end too. We started rushing our shots, taking them out of the flow of the offense." Although Penn's backcourt tandem led the Quakers with a combined 34 points, Banks and Bowers also helped create opportunities for the Explorers. La Salle scored 24 points off Penn turnovers. Nine of the Quakers turnovers were contributed by Bowers, with Banks adding six. "They were exhausted, and that's our Achilles heel right now," Penn coach Julie Soriero said. "What hurt [Bowers] when she got physically tired was defense. She started trailing cutters and giving up penetration. When you don't have legs you just can't get that sprint. Everyone else we can spell, but [Bowers and Banks] we can't." Off the bench, freshman forward Hope Smith scored four points in 11 minutes. Freshman center Renata Zappala spelled Dieterle, playing well on defense. Bowers only sat momentarily, while Banks did not rest at all. The Quakers' lack of depth showed in their play late in the game. "We have a few pieces of the puzzle missing right now, but we're still a very good team," Soriero said. "The bench is coming in, they're getting minutes and doing good things which, in the long run, is really going to help us. We played well for 26 minutes. Darn it that the game is 40."