Tigers nip Penn in finale

The script couldn't have been written better. The Penn women's basketball team would salvage its most disastrous season in school history with with four straight wins, all over Ivy League opponents, including a season-finale win over arch-rival Princeton. But the curtain was pulled on the Quakers one point short of success. Penn dropped its final game of the season to the Tigers, 67-66, when Quakers guard Patty Loyack was called for a travel on the potential go-ahead bucket with 6.9 seconds remaining. In her last game in a Penn uniform, Natasha Rezek got a double-double with 18 point and 10 rebounds, but fouled out with three-and-a-half minutes remaining in the game. "This was the first time this season I fouled out," Rezek said. "I'm reverting to bad habits." This loss was well fought, which shows just how far the Quakers have come in the last two weeks, which included a major upset of Dartmouth and a weekend sweep of Columbia and Cornell. Long-range shooting was the key to Penn's offense at the beginning of the first half. Sophomore guard Colleen Kelly scored 11 of her 15 points in the opening 20 minutes, including a 3-for-4 performance from behind the three-point arc. Kelly even demonstrated the ability to pull up and nail a jump shot -- something she was hesitant to do only a few weeks ago. The Tigers took a timeout and switched to a virtually impenetrable man-to-man defense, effectively shutting down the Penn perimeter offense. But the poor Quakers outside game was not totally a result of Princeton's defense. Thirty-two seconds into the second half, Kelly took a shot to the chest and went to bench for ten minutes with dizziness and breathing problems. Kelly returned with 6:22 to play, much to the relief of the Quakers. Kelly scored four more points, including a trey from the right wing that gave Penn a 62-60 lead under three minutes remaining. On the Quakers' next offensive set, freshman center Carrie Fleck grabbed an offensive rebound of a Kelly miss and layed it back in, giving Penn a four-point lead with two minutes to go. But Princeton's Kim Allen responded with a three-pointer from the right corner. Tigers guard Andrea Razi stole the ball on the ensuing Penn possession and dished to forward Tricia Klock, who drained a four-foot jumper to put Princeton up by one with 25.2 seconds left in the game. Two full timeouts and one twenty-second timeout later, Loyack hit a 15-footer from the top of the key, giving Penn a 67-66 lead with 14.8 seconds to go. But Quakers forward Deana Lewis was called for a foul on Klock on the next series. And Klock hit both ends of the one-and-one. The Quakers had one final opportunity with 6.9 seconds left. Loyack had the ball, drove down the lane, but was called for traveling -- Penn's 24th turnover of the game. Loyack then fouled Princeton's Andrea Razi, who missed the front end of a one-and-one with 1.4 seconds left. Kelly had a one-last shot to win the game with in the last second of play. But her off-balance three-point attempt never had a chance. "In other games, we come down that stretch and we lose it," Soriero said. "Tonight we lost it, but we didn't lose it as much." The Quakers showed no resemblances to the team that lost 22 straight games earlier in the year. "When [Rezek] fouled out, we still responded," Soriero said. "In the past, when she's gotten into foul trouble, it really hurt as we've gone scoreless."