W. Hoops earns 6th victory

The 70-63 win over Lafayette brings women's basketball even with last year's win total. Ugly has been a good description of the Penn women's basketball team the last few years. Winning ugly, however, is a new concept. But that's exactly what happened last night as the Quakers (6-8) beat Lafayette (7-9) 70-63 at the Palestra. Despite equaling their win total for all of last season, the Red and Blue was generally dissatisfied with its performance. "I'm happy we found a way to win," Penn coach Julie Soriero said. "We made free throws and got big rebounds? but it was not a pretty win." Lafayette coach Pat Fisher was somewhat more unhappy than the Quakers. She tossed the ball away rather than giving it to the referee during an outburst in the final minute of the game. Afterwards, she refused to answer questions. Penn led for most of the game, but was unable to pull away because Lafayette repeatedly made runs to stay in the game. Penn pushed their lead to five points on 12 separate occasions, but the Leopards never fell behind by more than seven. The last two minutes of the game were representative of the entire night, as a 60-53 lead with 1:50 remaining was not safe. Lafayette scored five quick points to cut the lead to two. But Diana Caramanico answered with a clutch offensive rebound and layup that gave Penn some breathing room. A Michelle Maldonado steal followed by two free throws by Erin Ladley gave the Quakers a six point lead with 42.7 seconds left. But even that was not secure when Tiffany Bedics made a long three to pull the Leopards back within three. Fortunately, Lafayette was forced to foul to stop the clock, and Colleen Kelly and Maldonado made four consecutive free throws to end the game. "We weren't happy, but it was a win that had to happen," said co-captain Maldonado. "We should have beaten them decisively." The Quakers were led by Caramanico's 29 points and 15 rebounds, and Maldonado's 14 points and 11 boards. But Penn's two frontcourt stars were not happy with their rebounding and interior defense. "We rebounded when we really needed to at the end, but in the beginning we were not doing a very good job," Maldonado said. Christel Rocha led Lafayette with 21 points on 8-for-10 shooting from the field. The 5-7 guard also pulled down 11 rebounds, two more than the combined total of all of Penn's guards. "I went by at will," Rocha said. "Their guards were kind of slow and I used my cross-over to drive inside." One of the guards trying to stop Rocha was Kelly, who is still wearing a knee brace as she recovers from the injury to her left media-collateral ligament. "I'm fine," Kelly said. "The brace is slowing me down a little bit? but it's the last time I'm going to wear it." While the Quakers outrebounded the Leopards by 10 in the second half and 44-35 overall, they were hurt by the lack of rebounding by their backcourt. "It comes down to guards stepping up on rebounding," Kelly said. "A lot of teams we're playing have guards that lead the team in rebounding." One bright spot for Penn was free throw shooting as they made 23-of-32 for 71.9 percent. The 32 attempts was a season high, and the Quakers took advantage by shooting more than 10 percent better than their season average. "They got to the foul line way too much," Lafayette assistant coach Stacey Cagenello said. "We didn't get good position inside." This improvement was especially evident from Caramanico, who continues to work on her game even though she already leads the team in scoring, rebounding and blocked shots. She took a career high 18 free throws, 10 more than any other Quaker had attempted in a game this season. As with the team, the story was both the number of attempts and the percentage from the line. She made 13-of-18 for 72.2 percent, which is a vast improvement from her 57 percent free throw shooting on the season. "I've been trying to concentrate and figure out why I'm missing," Caramanico said. "I shot free throws this afternoon for about an hour before the game." Caramanico's perseverance and work ethic illustrate why this year's team has already equaled last season's win total. And the Quakers show no signs of slowing down as they find new ways to win. Even if it isn't pretty.