W. Hoops looks to spot eighth straight victory

When the Penn women's basketball visits Lafayette in Easton, Pa., tomorrow, it will be looking at its polar opposite on the court. The Quakers (6-5, 2-0 Ivy League) have won their last seven games, while the Leopards (4-11, 0-3 Patriot League) have lost seven straight. Penn was last defeated on December 12 by Villanova, while Lafayette's most recent win came on December 10 against an Air Force team that the Red and Blue would demolish three weeks later. One team is surging at just the right time heading into league play, while the other has entered a talespin, from which it will not likely recover. The Quakers maintain, however, that this is not a game that will be won the moment they step onto the court. Rather, they must guard against a potential hiccup in a matchup that would spell letdown to many teams. "We really take it one game at a time," sophomore guard Jennifer Jones said. The Red and Blue often say that coach Kelly Greenberg is excellent in distributing comprehensive scouting reports to her team and cautioning them about playing down to an inferior opponent's level. And the players have clearly obeyed this principle, in building their impressive winning streak. While remaining confident, they do not expect to be guilty of overconfidence tomorrow afternoon. "Any team can play well and exploit the other team's weaknesses," senior co-captain and forward Diana Caramanico said. "But it's one of those games that we should win." Needless to say, things have just gone right for the Red and Blue in the last several weeks. Team cohesiveness is among the primary sources of the dramatic turnaround by this previously 1-5 club, but a stronger commitment to defense has also paid immense dividends. "We're playing team defense now," Jones said. "I think that's the biggest thing." Not to be overlooked either, though, is that Penn began its current streak in its first game following a 16-day layoff. Coincidence? Perhaps, but it is quite possible that the Quakers were slightly exhausted by mid-December and really needed a quiet two weeks in their schedule. "People could regroup and come back with positive attitudes," Jones said of the break. "I think it was good that we had a few days off so we could compose ourselves. We needed to fine-tune things, and we did that after break." And at 1 p.m. tomorrow, Penn will look to show the Leopards just how dominant it has become since the new year began. The main challenge for the Quakers will probably lie in controlling sophomore Jennifer Bayer. On a team that is rather undersized, Lafayette's 6'1" center poses a definite threat, averaging 14.1 points per game this season. Yet while Bayer is the lone Lafayette player to boast of a scoring average in double figures, the Leopards have also shown flashes of what can be a formidable defense. In their four victories this year, the Leopards have not surrendered more than 55 points in any single outing. This includes a rather impressive 58-48 win over Princeton, a tidbit likely to catch the eye of Greenberg and her team. Armed with this knowledge, Penn will look to impose its will and set the tempo early on, hoping never to give Lafayette an opportunity to win late in the game. "If we let them hang around and think they have a chance, then we might have some trouble," Caramanico said.