W. Hoops is upset at Delaware

NEWARK, Del. -- The names may have changed, but the storyline remained the same. Deana Lewis returned from an anterior cruciate ligament tear in her left knee, Shelly Dieterle stepped forward with a season-high 19 points, and reserves Hope Smith, Renata Zappala and Patti Loyack saw plenty of minutes. But it didn't make much difference on the scoreboard, and now the Penn women's basketball team will wake up Christmas morning with a goose egg in the win column. The Red and Blue dropped their fifth consecutive game Saturday, falling to Delaware by a 70-53 margin. As usual, the Quakers (0-5) could not break the turnover habit, committing a season-high 29 in the game. Senior point guard Shelly Bowers alone had as many turnovers (10) as points, rebounds and assists combined. The Blue Hens (5-2) changed defenses on the fly and used a simple halfcourt trap to force the Penn guards into mental mistakes all afternoon. "The trap was horrible," Penn coach Julie Soriero said. "I don't think they put that much pressure on us either. Down the stretch we cut it to a four-point game. They went to that zone and we turned it over five times. We worked on it in practice [Friday]. I'm the coach. What do I do? I can't throw the ball for them." The Quakers' turnstile man-to-man defense may have been even more disturbing. The Penn defense allowed Delaware to get the ball inside to senior all-North Atlantic Conference forward Colleen McNamara almost at will. The six-foot McNamara set up shop on the right block, and did not even bother attempting a field goal from outside of eight feet en route to a game-high 22 points on seven-of-10 shooting. The Blue Hens as a team shot 51 percent from the field but more importantly earned 34 free throw attempts to a mere five for Penn. "We'll be just a step out of position and now it's a foul," Soriero said. "Or we'll get help rotation, but the other person is a step slow in getting to the block, and now we give up an easy basket to their post player." In the early going, Dieterle and senior center Natasha Rezek looked like they might be the ones to dominate the paint. Dieterle scored six of Penn's first seven points, while Rezek amassed five offensive rebounds in the first six minutes of play. But despite dominating the boards, Rezek, the team's leading scorer, struggled to hang on to the ball or find the basket. After Lewis replaced her following a radio timeout, Rezek (7 points, 6 turnovers) disappeared from the Quakers' offense altogether. Delaware built a seven-point lead late in the first half before a Loyack follow-up basket and a 15-foot swish by Zappala cut the Blue Hens lead to 24-21. Lewis, Loyack, and Zappala came off the bench to score eight of Penn's 21 first half points. Along with Smith, they looked sharp in running the Quakers' offense. "People have gotten a lot more confidence because everybody's moved in and out, and everybody's getting playing time," Dieterle said. "When we went in we're like, 'Yeah, it's my turn to play for once,' instead of being nervous. This is the first game we've had a real rotation." In the final three minutes of the first half, the Blue Hens turned up the heat defensively. Delaware used its press to run off eight unanswered points and take a 32-21 lead into the locker room. Penn opened the second half with a revamped lineup featuring Dieterle, Lewis, Smith, Bowers and senior forward Amy Tarr, but they didn't make much of a dent in the Blue Hens' lead. Only Dieterle's sharp shooting kept Penn within striking distance. With 11:36 remaining, Bowers picked up her fourth personal foul, putting the Blue Hens into the bonus and herself on the bench. Without a true point guard on the floor, the Quakers used a frenetic full-court press to go on a 10-4 run and cut the Delaware advantage to four. The Quakers would get no closer. "We called a timeout to rest our players and get more intensity on defense," Delaware coach Joyce Perry said. The Blue Hens came out of the huddle in the half-court trap that had been their bread and butter all day, and sure enough the Quakers answered the call with five consecutive turnovers. Delaware point guard Denise Wojciech personally took over the Blue Hens offense, scoring 12 of her 14 points in the second half. Wojciech immediately found freshman center Anette Percy for an easy layup and later knocked down a 10-foot leaner and a layup of her own to put the Delaware lead back in double digits. If nothing else, Saturday's game marked the successful return of Lewis to the Quakers' rotation. The sophomore center finished with a respectable line of six points, five rebounds and three steals in only 17 minutes. "I feel like the Greek general in the Pyrrhic Victory," Lewis said. "He beat everybody, but his whole army was wiped out too. He won, but he lost. That's how I feel. I played well my first game back, but then we lost." With a couple of key injuries and her team on the schnide, Soriero probably feels more like Eagles coach Rich Kotite these days. "I never expected to be 0-5," Soriero said. "I'm glad we have a bit of a break because it gives us a chance to regroup. We have a chance to prepare to play."