NOTEBOOK: West honored as Ivy Player of the Week

To top off the best week of the 1998-99 Penn women's basketball season, Penn junior guard Mandy West was named Ivy League Player of the Week for her performance in the Quakers' last three games. West, the first Quaker this season to win the honor, earned the accolade for her stellar play against Army, Cornell and Columbia, in which she scored 28, 31 and 15 points, respectively. "I think I've become better at setting up the offense," West said. "When I first started playing the one, I was out of control and unpredictable. Now I think I've gotten better at being more consistent." The week's play increased West's scoring average to 18.8, while she extended her streak of double-figure games to 10. "I think she chose her shots selectively in the last few games. She's passed the ball extremely well and she's broken the press well," Penn coach Julie Soriero said. "She's also stepped into more of a leadership role and in general her confidence is much higher." · The Quakers are idle until they play at Dartmouth and Harvard on Friday and Saturday. If history is any indication, this weekend should be bittersweet for Penn sophomore forward Diana Caramanico. In her collegiate career, Caramanico's No. 1 Ivy League victim has been Dartmouth. Against the Big Green, she averages 29 points per game -- while shooting an amazing 66.7 percent from the floor -- to go along with 13 rebounds per game. However, 24 hours after playing her favorite Ivy League opponent, she will take on her biggest Ivy nemesis. Last season Harvard was able to limit Caramanico to only nine points per game, her lowest output against any team in the Ancient Eight. "Harvard has bigger and beefier post players than any of the other Ivy League teams so against them I had a disadvantage weightwise and I got pushed around and taken out of the game," Caramanico said. "I'm hoping I can realize that early and not let it happen again." These numbers may be a bit misleading, however because the sophomore has only faced each team twice. · Since women's basketball became a varsity sport in the 1973-74 season, the Quakers had never had two consecutive seasons that included four-game winning streaks until Saturday, when Penn won its fourth in a row against Columbia. "There's a tremendous amount of potential for this program," Soriero said. "This is a nice, young team that is gaining confidence every single game." Strikingly, both four-game winning streaks came at the same point in the season. Last year, the Quakers beat Lafayette, Army, Cornell and Columbia to win four games in row. Exactly 52 weeks later, during the 1998-99 campaign, Penn completed the same four game sweep against another Patriot League team -- this time Bucknell -- followed again by Army, Cornell and Columbia. The Quakers will try to avoid a repeat of last season in Friday's contest. One year ago, they put their four-game winning streak on the line against Harvard and lost 90-64. "Allison Feaster was the nation's leading scorer," Soriero said. "She came down here and played well and Suzie Miller really stepped up her game." Soriero said she likes the Quakers' chances better this year "as long as we stay focused at our task at hand." · If the Quakers win Friday at Dartmouth, it will be Penn's first three-game Ivy League winning streak since 1995-96. The only player remaining from that season is senior forward Sue Van Stone. "This [year's] team is definitely capable of putting together a big run," Van Stone said. "The fact that our game with Princeton went to overtime, and they're No. 1 in the league, proves that we can beat anybody on any given night." A win Friday would also mark only the third time in Penn history that the Quakers have gone unbeaten for five straight games. The other times came during the 1974-75 and 1994-95 seasons. And what if Penn sweeps this weekend's action? It will be the first six-game winning streak in the history of the program.