Quakers engineer a road victory

The Penn men's basketball team blew a 15-point lead in the second half, but still pulled out its third win. BETHLEHEM, Pa. -- It is tough to blame Penn's performance on jetlag four days after returning from Puerto Rico, but the Quakers were running out of gas in the closing minutes of last night game against Lehigh. After leading by as many as 15 points in the second half, the Engineers (3-2) fought back to take a brief lead in the late stages of the second half. Penn, however, recovered and squeaked out a 75-73 victory at Stabler Arena. Frank Brown's two free throws with six seconds left iced the game for the Quakers (3-2). Brown finished the game with a double-double, 14 points and 11 rebounds. Jed Ryan made the game closer than it might otherwise have been by picking up a technical foul with 9:38 left to play. The technical followed Ryan's fourth foul, an offensive pushoff away form the ball. College rules count technicals as personal fouls, making the technical Ryan's fifth and sending him to the bench for the rest of the game. "He should keep his mouth shut and he knows that," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "The officials do the best they can. You shut up and you go play the game." "It's [Ryan's] fifth personal foul. He's one of our key ingredients to stem the tide and he's not there." Lehigh capitalized on the technical by making both free throws and a layup on the ensuing possession to cut the lead to 61-53. The lead could have been one less, but Lehigh guard Steve Aylsworth failed to convert his free throw after getting fouled on his made layup. From there, the Engineers continued to chip away at Penn's lead. Steve Aylsworth's two free throws with 4:30 to play erased Penn's lead and tied the game at 66. "I think they were on the retreat," Aylsworth said. "They were playing not to lose and we were playing our hearts out and trying to win." The Quakers clearly missed Jordan in closing minutes of the game, looking unsure of whom to turn to when their lead started to fade away. Matt Langel stepped up for the Quakers to make a layup after his own offensive rebounds to put the Quakers ahead 73-70 with 55 seconds left in the game. Langel had four offensive rebounds in the game. Penn piled up 14 for the contest to Lehigh's eight. The key statistic in the game, however, will not show up on the stat sheet. Lehigh's shooting percentage was a poor 35.7 percent, but the frustrating part for the Engineers was that many of the missed shots were layup attempts. Forward Fido Willybiro was the worst culprit, missing a layup with 1:42 to play that would have put his team ahead 72-71. Willybiro went 1-for-9 from the floor in the game. The drama of the final minutes came in stark contrast to the sloppy and mistake-filled opening minutes of the game. Until Kreitz's burst to open the second half, Penn had been playing as smoothly as a Philly cab driver. Individual efforts on each play were keeping the Quakers ahead, as Penn showed that without a floor leader to unify it, five players in the same uniform doesn't necessarily constitute a team. "I just think Kreitz is great," said Lehigh coach Sal Mentesana, citing the Penn guard's hustle. It was the Engineers who were expected to be a one-man team, but star guard Brett Eppehimer was frustrated both by the Quakers' defense and by his team's inability to get him open shots. The junior was averaging 27.5 points entering the game, but failed to score until 11:36 had passed in the game. After his slow start, Eppehimer recovered to get 10 points in the half His most important contribution in the half, however, was a bullet pass thrown right at the front of the rim which was slammed home by Damien McGill. The alley-oop gave the crowd, which up to that point had spent the game heckling Kreitz for his height, a chance to cheer their own team for a change. When Eppehimer and company finally got into the game, Penn could barely get it back out of its end of the court after each Lehigh basket. Lehigh's press traumatized the Quakers into myriad turnovers. The scene repeated itself often enough to allow Lehigh to cut the lead down to 37-31 with 50 seconds left in the first half. Fortunately for Penn, Lehigh seemed to give up when the Quakers moved the ball across half-court. The Quakers dominated the offensive boards, garnering nine offensive rebounds in the first half including three by guard Matt Langel. Six different Quakers had at least three rebounds in the first half as Penn carried a 24-15 advantage in the rebound column into the locker room at the half.

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