W. Hoops travels to Appolo in quest of first win of season

The Quakers visit Temple hoping to avoid starting the season with a string of three straight losses. Before Penn women's basketball coach Julie Soriero can start worrying about the Temple Owls she'll face tomorrow, she has to first focus on her own team -- mainly where the squad that nearly beat Villanova went and how she can summon them back. Because if last Wednesday's loss to Towson State was any indication, that departed squad is sorely missed. "I'm hoping the game last night was a one time occurrence," Penn senior co-captain Sue Van Stone said of the Towson loss. "What we need to improve on would be everything. We have to box out better, play better defense, be stronger on offense and be stronger with the ball. That team wasn't the Penn team and I think we'll show Temple that that's not how we play." Van Stone's co-captain Mandy West agreed the Quakers need to prove that the Towson performance was atypical. According to the junior guard, there will be a stark contrast between the Quakers that faltered on Wednesday against Towson and the team that will take the court tomorrow, once Penn gets into striking distance. "Last night [Soriero] called a time out because she wanted us to go on a run," West explained. "And instead of going on a run we ended up down by five. So today we did scrimmages in five-minute segments to work on building a lead and maintaining a lead." But West felt that while the Quakers certainly struggled offensively against Towson, it was their performance on the defensive end that was most alarming. "The thing that really concerned [Soriero] was that we didn't respond very well with our defense," West said. "We let them continue to score and so they just killed us. We need to work on that and play more aggressively." Aggression may be the deciding factor in Penn's Big Five matchup with Temple. In addition to the intensity that the Quakers can expect with any neighborhood rivalry, the Owls are known for their competitiveness, according to Van Stone. "They're a scrappy team," the senior co-captain said. "They hustle, they run the floor well, and they just scrap. We have to come out prepared to win one in the trenches when we play them." But a battlefront isn't too threatening without an effective leader and the Owls lost their point guard Mary O'Brien for the season to a knee injury. Perhaps tomorrow's game against Temple will mark a rare occasion when Penn actually boasts more experience in its backcourt, with West and sophomore point guard Erin Ladley running the show. "She's a very talented point guard and it's a shame for her," Soriero said of O'Brien. "She's a nice kid who transferred and used her redshirt year already. I think they may be a little bit weak in the guard spot." But Soriero feels this may actually be a mixed blessing for the Quakers because while O'Brien's replacement may be new to the position, her size may compensate for it. "My worry would be that they could put a much bigger kid on [Ladley] and then even though they don't have a true point guard they can still put a lot of pressure on her and force some untimely turnovers."