Soriero nears milestone with victory

The Penn women's basketball team's 18-point victory came at the expense of the Patriot League champion Lehigh. The Penn women's basketball team knew that this game was a major fork in the road of their schedule -- the question was which way they would travel. "We were just so pumped up. We've been working so hard that it was time for us to unleash and step up our game," Quakers co-captain Colleen Kelly said. The Quakers did that and more last night at the Palestra. Penn coach Julie Soriero witnessed the Quakers' 21-6 run in the last 10 minutes of the first half. Then she saw the Houdini-like vanishing of Penn's lead at the start of the second half and two more streaks which pulled them ahead for good over Lehigh. With Penn's 75-57 win over the defending Patriot League champions, Soriero closed in on a milestone by earning her 199th career victory. Coming into tonight's game, Penn looked to build on the momentum attained in their victory over East Tennessee State last weekend at Wilmington, N.C. However, the game started on the downside as Lehigh implemented their full-court press against Penn. The Quakers (2-3) opened the game from behind, but battled their way from not one but two six-point deficits in the first half. The Red and Blue proceeded to pull away for the first time at the four-minute mark with three steals by Liz Alexander, Sue Van Stone and Michelle Maldonado. This sparked a run in which Penn scored eight unanswered points. The second half started out with an about-face. Lehigh opened the first 2:33 with an 8-0 run, and went ahead 40-37 with 15 minutes to go in the game. After a Lehigh 20-second timeout, the game turned around for good. Kelly started off Penn's go-ahead run with a three-pointer to tie the score at 40 apiece. Seconds later, forward Diana Caramanico drew a charge on Lehigh center Alexis Bevington. During a sequence of three straight Quakers rebounds in the next minute, Caramanico finished up the work on the boards with a put-back off the glass. Kelly's circus-style layup culminated an 11-0 run from which the Mountain Hawks could not recover. Penn then finished the last 6:40 of the game by outscoring Lehigh 19-8. "The fact that we didn't fold against East Tennessee State gave us a lot of confidence and taught us how to push through something and keep pushing for points, and to broaden our lead even when we're up," Penn forward Michelle Maldonado said. "We didn't shoot well in the first half or the second half," Lehigh coach Sue Troyan said. "We had a poor shooting night." The proceeding assessment says it all. The Mountain Hawks (2-4) shot a dismal 27.6 percent from the field in the first half, and 33.3 percent on the night. Firing from three-point land also was a chore for Lehigh, going 2-for-12 on the evening. By the final buzzer, the Quakers led all shooting categories, including 64 percent from the free-throw line. The press that rattled Penn from the opening tip seemed to fade into oblivion. Troyan was not enthralled with that aspect of the game, despite the early lead gained off the press. "I thought we did an OK job, we could have done a better job," Troyan said. "Penn handled it well down the stretch, and we didn't get a whole lot out of it." Co-captain Kelly felt that their game plan was a major reason for defeating the press later in the game. "We knew they were going to come at us with that press," Kelly said. "I think we did a really good job under pressure. [Guard] Liz [Alexander] stepped up her game tonight, did a great job with the ball." Alexander provided an immediate boost off the bench, scoring six points in her first nine minutes. She was 7-of-10 from the field and finished with 14 points. Kelly led the Quakers' charge with 29 points, including 5-for-11 from the three-point arc. The senior also led the team with five assists and finished with eight rebounds. Penn guard Sue Van Stone played all 40 minutes. Also, forward Michelle Maldonado led the Quakers with nine rebounds, part of the Quakers' 25 second-half rebounds, versus 15 by the Mountain Hawks. "We did a better job of controlling the boards in the first half than in the second half.," Troyan said. "That got away from us. They were much more physical and we just didn't come back from that, didn't do a good job blocking out." Some work remains to be done, including some inconsistency by the Quakers in offense-to-defense transition. "What we have to do once we score is get back," Kelly said. "We congratulated ourselves but we can't do that. We just have to score, get back on defense, and get another stop."