W. Hoops shows the broom to New York

With their first weekend sweep since 1993-94, the Penn women's basketball team corsses .500 overall. Following a blowout loss to St. Francis (Pa.) in the season opener, it looked like the future would never come for the predominantly freshman Penn women's basketball team. The future has arrived, however, sooner than expected. And it definitely looks bright for the Quakers (9-8, 4-1 Ivy League). Penn reached the .500 mark Friday night with a 58-52 win over Columbia (4-13, 0-6) in New York, and extended its winning streak to four games with a 71-61 win over Cornell (5-13, 2-4) in Ithaca, N.Y. "For Columbia and Cornell, if they could beat any team, they thought it would be us," Penn senior co-captain Colleen Kelly said. "But we weren't going to let that happen." The two wins this weekend gave Penn four consecutive road wins, tying the Quakers' all-time record, set in 1990-91. More significantly, the Quakers remained just one game behind Ivy League-leading Harvard,which visits the Palestra Friday riding a 31-game Ivy League winning streak. "We were picked last in preseason, so every game we're an underdog," Penn freshman center Diana Caramanico said. "But we're starting to earn a little bit of respect." Although Columbia and Cornell are two of the weakest teams in the Ivy League, the weekend sweep was still a major accomplishment; it was the first weekend road sweep in Kelly and senior forward Michelle Maldonado's four-year career. Colleen Kelly paced the Quakers in Friday's defeat of Columbia, scoring 22 points on 7-of-17 shooting from the field, including five three-pointers. She played all 40 minutes in both games, returning to the starting lineup for the first time since injuring her left medial collateral ligament on December 5 against Navy. "Perhaps Columbia didn't prep for her or overlooked how good a shooter [Kelly] is because it was her first game back starting," Penn coach Julie Soriero said. Maldonado and Caramanico both shot well, with Maldonado making 7-of-11 and Caramanico going 6-for-13. These numbers were especially impressive as the Quakers held Columbia to 24.6 percent shooting from the floor. The Lions were led by Renee Jackson, who scored 10 points off the bench. Freshman forward Shawnee Pickney grabbed 18 rebounds, 12 more than her average entering the game. Penn's guards combined for 13 rebounds against Columbia, including eight by Sue Van Stone. But the Quakers lost the overall rebounding battle 52-47. "We were pumped up against Columbia," Kelly said. "We knew their guards crashed the boards." Coming into the game against Cornell, the Quakers were hoping to overcome the fatigue from playing two nights in a row. Penn lost to Yale in the first set of back-to-back games on the Ivy League schedule. This was the team's first experience with travel between the two games. "We're a young team, so traveling was hard," Kelly said. "They're not used to sleeping on the bus. It took five hours because of the snow and we got in around 3:00 [Friday morning]." But the Quakers were ready for the fatigue this time, and they surged in the second half instead of faltering. Caramanico led the team with 28 points and 10 rebounds on 12-for-18 shooting from the field. And Penn only turned the ball over 14 times. But the two keys to the game were the play of Erin Ladley and a coaching move that paid off well. Ladley scored 18 points and shut down Cornell guard Kristie Riccio. Riccio came in leading the Ivy League with 46.7 percent shooting from three-point range, but Ladley held her to 1-for-8. With a 30-12 rebounding deficit in the first half, the Quakers were fortunate to be tied at 27 at halftime. Soriero stepped in as Penn seemed to be letting fatigue get the best of them again. She shifted the team from their usual man-to-man defense into a zone -- and the results were astounding. Penn responded on the boards, where it managed a 16-14 rebounding advantage in the second half. The Quakers came out quickly with a three-point play by Caramanico on their first possession. This basket gave the Red and Blue a three-point lead, its biggest thus far, and they never trailed again. "They had a nice rhythm in their man-to-man offense so we tried to take them out of it," Soriero said. "We were making people shoot where they didn't want to and we had better rebounding position." A 10-3 Penn run midway through the half was keyed by five points by Caramanico and a Ladley three-pointer that stretched the lead to 10. After eight consecutive points by the Big Red, Penn went on a 12-2 run highlighted by two clutch free throws from Caramanico and another Ladley three-pointer. The Quakers never looked back as Cornell was forced to foul to stop the clock. "We did a good job on our defense," Soriero said. "We adjusted well to their adjustments. But our rebounding has got to get better." Despite their success, rebounding is clearly an area of concern for the Quakers. While the second half of the Cornell game was encouraging, the key problem is a lack of consistency. Rather than taking time to savor this weekend's success, the Quakers hope to keep their momentum going against Harvard. This game is a chance to prove to the rest of the league what the players already believe -- the future is now.