W. Hoops begins road stretch with Towson

After a loss to Villanova last Saturday, the Penn women's basketball team looks for a win at Towson. Despite an impressive debut at Villanova on Saturday, the Penn women's basketball team is still looking for their first win of the season. The Quakers (0-1) make their second attempt at a victory tonight at Towson (0-0). "I thought for a season opener we played as well as we could have for that level of competition," Penn coach Julie Soriero said. "There were times we could have played better, but I was happy." The 64-54 score was much better than last year's 99-55 loss to the Wildcats. Nevertheless, Penn believes it can improve further. "The performance was encouraging, but it could have been better," co-captain Sue Van Stone said. "Villanova was a very winnable game." Throughout the Villanova game, the Quakers were erratic. For example, co-captain Mandy West was 0-7 from three point range but 10-10 at the foul line. "Our consistency could have been better," Stone said. "We had moments when we played really well, but we have to play a full forty minutes that well." The consistency problem might be due to the fact that the Quakers are inexperienced playing together. West learned the system last year while sitting the sidelines as an ineligible transfer from Boston College, but was new to the floor, and there are two other new starters including sophomore center Jessica Allen. "Consistency is a big problem still because we're young, and we're not completely comfortable playing with each other," West said. The Quakers must also improve on concrete aspects of the game including running solid offensive and defensive plays. "There were times against Villanova that we could have defended better against the screen as well as setting our own screens," Soriero said. "When we play Towson we have to continue our aggressive defense and keep up our good rebounding." The game tonight is Towson's home opener so Soriero warns that the Quakers must be ready to play against a fired up team. The Quakers under Soriero have never played the Tigers but Penn has a good indication of how Towson plays from video. "We know that sometimes Towson fails to play strong defense and those are the times we have to step in and take advantage of their mental lapses," Soriero said. The Tigers best player is junior guard Shniece Perry. Last season, Perry was All-American East second team and scored 8.9 points a game while leading the team with a .460 field goal percentage and 8.1 rebounds a game. Penn must also look out for 6'2" center Jess Gordon who scored 9.7 points a game last season. Like the Quakers, Towson is young and improving and posted a 15-13 record last season. Although the Quakers are taking Towson and the rest of their non-conference opponents seriously, the team has an eye out for January 4 when it starts its Ivy League season against Princeton. "Even though these games are very important, they are all building blocks for the Ivy League," West said. "We hope to peak in January when we start playing our in-conference games." Until then, the Quakers hope to gel and become more comfortable playing with and depending on each other. "I think we have to use all of our weapons," Van Stone said. "Right now, we get very focused on certain plays and don't use all of our options. As we get more comfortable with the offense we're running and the defensive schemes we'll find more opportunities within our sets and once we do that we'll score a lot more." The Quakers know that they have a lot to work on before they begin to play to their potential, but a win tonight would be a push in the right direction.

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