NOTEBOOK: W. Hoops and No. 1 just a few plays apart

Five foul shots. One trey plus one driving lay-up. A jump shot and an NBA three. Take any one of these combinations and the Penn women's basketball team could be tied for first place in the Ivy rankings. "The only thing that is between us and being at the top is five points," Penn coach Julie Soriero said. In the first half of Ivy play, Penn lost two heartbreakers to Princeton and Dartmouth. During winter break Penn and Princeton went head-to-head at the Palestra. The Quakers led in the last few minutes, but they lost their composure and the Tigers forced the Quakers to overtime with two points in the closing seconds of regulation. Princeton went on to a 67-58 victory. On the road the Red and Blue fell to the Big Green in the waning minutes, a continual theme in Penn's play this season. The score was 70-68 Dartmouth. If Penn did not give up two points to send the Princeton game into overtime, and if the Quakers had managed just three more points in the Dartmouth game, they could be at the top of the women's standings this week. Princeton (14-9, 9-2 Ivy League) leads the pack with Dartmouth (15-8, 8-3) following close behind and Brown (12-12, 7-5) in third. The Red and Blue (10-13, 6-5) sit in the middle of the field but are ready to be the spoilers of the league. "For men's basketball, other than the traditional powerhouses of Penn and Princeton, everyone is fighting for third place. In the women's there can theoretically be a four-way tie," Soriero commented. "There is so much parity in women's basketball. It exists from the top to the bottom. There is not a single team in our conference that is blowing everyone out." · One team, Dartmouth, did blow out No. 1 Princeton 64-40 last Friday. But the Big Green could not ride their winning momentum when they stepped into Penn's house. Penn wreaked havoc in the Palestra Saturday night when it shocked Dartmouth in a 80-77 overtime victory. Last week's upsets just go to show how anything can happen in the women's division. No team is in safe waters going into the last weekend of Ivy play. · It is a rarity, not to mention an emotional roller coaster, for a team to go through multiple milestones in one weekend's play. Last weekend the Quakers handled the pressure with poise and grace. Sophomore Diana Caramanico -- who leads the league in scoring at 22.9 per game, field goal percentage at 50.3 percent and rebounds 12.5 per contest -- made headlines with her 1,000th career point in the first few minutes of Friday night's Harvard game. The team continued to make headlines Saturday as Soriero coached her last game in the storied Palestra and went out with a bang. Her team soundly defeated Dartmouth in overtime, the first time the Quakers defeated the Big Green in five years. "Dartmouth came into the gym thinking that they were going to beat us and we could see their train of thought," sophomore Jessica Allen said. "Once we pulled ahead of them, we really started to get into it because we knew what it would mean to us and do to Dartmouth's egos if we won." The Quakers have lost one too many games in the last minutes of play this season but defeating the Big Green gave them the confidence to know that they could play with the best and beat them. "The Dartmouth game made me remember why I played basketball," Allen said. "When we ran into the middle of the court in a huddle jumping up and down, I thought, 'This is what it's all about.'"