'W. Hoops' - there goes another one

With just 0.2 seconds left in regulation, Penn senior Amy Tarr threw an inbounds pass from under her own basket to teammate Colleen Kelly. The junior shooting guard, in one motion, caught Tarr's feed and fired up a three-point attempt. But her heave clanked off the front of the rim, and Princeton (5-18 4-7 Ivy League) escaped from the Palestra with a narrow 48-45 victory. Kelly's shot -- which landed just a bit short -- is symbolic of how both last night's game and the season have gone for the Red and Blue, who fell to 6-17 overall and 2-9 in the Ivy League. "Too little, too late," is how Penn coach Julie Soriero described her team's play. Princeton headed into the locker room at the half clinging to a two-point lead, 23-21. But Old Nassau rattled off the first eight points after the intermission, and Penn never recovered. It wasn't until Kelly hit a trifecta with 5:01 left that the Quakers began to chip into the lead. Even then, the Red and Blue were never able to cut the deficit to three points. "You have to catch it and shoot it all in the same motion [with 0.2 left]," Kelly said. "I did that and it was just short of the rim." Defensively, Penn played one of its finest games of the season. Six different Quakers recorded a steal and Princeton centers turned the ball over eight times. After a Leigh Washburn turnover late in the first half, a perplexed Princeton coach Liz Feeley jumped up screaming, "Leigh, stop dribbling! Stop dribbling, damn it!" But offensively it was a different story for the Quakers. Penn shot 25.8 percent from the field in the first half and an equally putrid 27.6 percent after the break. Maldonado and Kelly -- Penn's leading scorers -- shot a combined 7-for-34. Tarr (2-for-3) was the only Quaker to shoot above the 50-percent mark. The Tigers' full-court pressure had a lot to do with the Quakers' inability to establish an offensive flow. But things were not much better for Penn at the foul line where, unguarded, they shot just five for 13 in the first half. "Princeton just outplayed us," Soriero said. "We work on our shooting and talk about intensity. Its a shame that in the first half we shot 40 percent [from the line]." Offensively, the Tigers were led by a pair of freshmen. Five-foot-10 guard Kate Thirolf scored 18 points on 7-for-13 shooting. Forward Erica Bowman chipped in 10 and five assists. Defensively, Princeton was led by Washburn, who blocked a career-high six shots in just 13 minutes off the bench. Six-foot-one starting center Lea Ann Drohan and Bowman added three more blocks each for the Tigers, who blocked 12 shots to the Quakers' four. "Shot blocking is like a last resort," Drohan said. "I don't go as a shot-block as my defense. It's a second effort." If there was a positive in last night's Quakers loss, it was the excellent play of co-captains Tarr and Deana Lewis in their final appearances at the Palestra. Tarr helped get the Quakers off to an auspicious start by firing an in-bounds pass to Kelly, in the game's opening seconds, who relayed it ahead to point guard Chelsea Hathaway for a wide-open lay-up. The 5-foot-9 guard played the roll of inbounder for the Quakers and also took control of much of the ball-handing duties, allowing Hathaway to post-up down low. "We thought that they were going to come out with pressure so we came out with the fly play," Tarr said. "After that, they backed off and let us get the ball in bounds." Lewis returned to Penn's starting lineup last night after coming off the bench in the Quakers' past three games. The 6-foot-1 center was unable to get an offensive game established against Drohan and Washburn, but she was excellent on the boards. Lewis pulled down a team-high 12 rebounds on a night when Maldonado was held to just 5. There were moments with Tarr and Lewis on the floor when the Quakers' offense started to click. Despite her poor shooting, Kelly gave the Quakers many second chances at the hoop with five offensive rebounds. Center Jen Houser swiped two balls off the glass in seven minutes. And forward Shelly Fogerty went for eight points in the second half.

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