Supporting cast makes the difference for W. Hoops

As usual, sophomore forward Diana Caramanico and junior guard Mandy West dominated the Quakers' stat sheets this weekend. Unfortunately for the Quakers, the top two scorers in the Ivy League cannot win games by themselves -- the prime example being Penn's 74-65 loss to Brown on Friday. However, key contributions from the rest of Penn's regulars enabled the Quakers to down Yale 73-62 on Saturday. One of the nation's best one-two scoring punches, West and Caramanico scored a combined 110 points in two games, good for 79.7 percent of Penn's scoring. Collectively, the two have tallied 64.2 percent of Penn's scoring for the entire season. Against Brown, Caramanico and West scored 33 and 22 points, respectively, while the rest of the team managed to total just 10 points. Four of those 10 points came back-to-back from sophomore guard Erin Ladley, who kicked off a 21-10 Penn run to cut Brown's lead to 68-64 late in the game. After Ladley netted those four points, it was all Caramanico and West down the stretch. The duo accounted for all of Penn's final 18 points. That, however, was not the case against Yale. The Quakers got scoring punch in the waning minutes from unlikely heroes as they secured their eighth win of the season. With only seven minutes remaining in the contest, Penn led 51-46. Yale went on to score 16 points in the rest of the game, but the entire Penn offense answered every time Yale threatened to come back. In contrast to the Brown game, in which only Caramanico and West scored in the final seven minutes, half of Penn's final 22 points came from other players. Sophomore guard Liz Alexander hit a jumper to give Penn a 53-46 lead. The Elis responded with a trey before Ladley nailed a three from the corner to regain Penn's seven point lead. "Yale did a nice job with the double team on Diana, so we talked at halftime about rotating the ball more," Penn coach Julie Soriero said. "We talked about rotating the ball to look for a shot when the weak side kid has gone to help out on Diana. It was open for Liz and Erin a couple of times." Ladley did more than just score to help the Quakers. She was second on the team in both rebounds and assists, with six and three, respectively. "You can let Caramanico and West score 50 points between them if you shut down everybody else," Yale coach Cecilia DeMarco said. "I thought [Ladley] really hurt us. She really broke our backs with about five minutes left when she got a critical rebound and gave the ball to Caramanico, who scored. "They got her contribution and whenever you have three people contributing you'll probably win the game." Ladley also recorded a timely assist on a nice inside look to sophomore center Jessica Allen, another clutch performer for the Quakers. Allen helped secure the Red and Blue's victory by scoring six points in the last 2:23 of action. She scored on the pass from Ladley while drawing a foul in the process. After hitting the free throw to complete the three-point play, Allen then scored three points in the game's last minute to put the nail in Yale's proverbial coffin. "I think [balanced scoring] really makes a difference in any game, especially on the second night in an Ivy weekend," West said. "I played 40 minutes in both games, so obviously [I'm] going to be pretty tired down the stretch. It's great when your other teammates can step up and you know there's an even distribution on offense and defense."

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