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Penn guard Erin Ladley had a pair of big games last weekend. She scored 20 points at Yale and 22 against Brown. (Trevor Grandle/The Daily Pennsylvanian)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- If the Penn women's basketball team were to win its first-ever Ivy League championship in 2001, you might look back to this weekend as one of the linchpins of that title. Sure, 10 conference games remain, and being in first place in the first week of February can hardly assure anything. But the Red and Blue's two thrilling road wins on Friday and Saturday nights are a definite indicator of how this team has grown since last year. On Friday, the Quakers (12-5, 4-0 Ivy League) erased a Yale lead that had ballooned to as much as 11 in the first half, and was still five with barely over a minute remaining, to top the Elis (5-13, 0-5 Ivy League), 92-80, in overtime. Even more impressively, following the emotionally draining and physically bruising contest in New Haven, Conn., Penn defeated Brown (10-9, 5-1 Ivy League) in dramatic, come-from-behind fashion the next night in Providence, R.I., by a final of 77-72. The back-to-back victories extend the Quakers' program-record winning streak to 11 games. "We have a mentality that we refuse to lose," Penn sophomore guard Jennifer Jones said after the Yale win. This attitude became apparent at Yale after a very slow beginning for the Quakers. The Elis jumped out to leads of 14-4 and 19-8, as sophomore guard Maria Smear came out on fire, hitting her first four shots, the first three of which came from beyond the arc. But Penn's defense then stepped it up a notch, shutting down Smear's outside game, while forcing a number of Yale turnovers in cutting the Red and Blue's halftime deficit to just two, at 36-34. The Quakers were able to tie the Elis on a couple of occasions in the second half, but were not able to get over the hump until Penn senior co-captain Erin Ladley nailed a three-pointer from the right side with 5:50 left, giving her team its first lead of the evening, 62-61. Ladley, who scored 20 against Yale and followed that up with a career-high 22 at Brown, made the first of what would become a plethora of enormous shots that Penn converted in the two games. When Yale recaptured the lead, it was Penn's other senior co-captain, Diana Caramanico, who drilled her fifth three-pointer of the season to tie the game at 70. Again, the Quakers were unable to seal the deal, though, as the Elis reeled off five straight points, before Penn connected on two enormous shots. Penn sophomore point guard Tara Twomey scored three of her career-high 14 points with a long-range bomb from straight-away to keep her team alive, and Jones knotted the game at 75 with an offensive rebound and lay-up, sending the game to overtime. The Red and Blue clearly had momentum in their favor, and the five-minute extra session was more like an offensive exhibition, as Penn outscored Yale, 17-5. Ladley led the way with seven points in overtime, as the Quakers hit four of their five field goal attempts, and then iced the game with a parade of foul shots. "When I saw Jones and [Julie] Epton high-fiving each other and with intensity that would scare you, I knew we were going to win," Penn coach Kelly Greenberg said of her mindset at the end of the second half. Saturday's game largely mirrored the pattern of Friday's, as Penn again struggled at the outset, but solved its problems quickly enough to turn a 23-15 deficit with 8:52 left before the half into a 40-30 halftime advantage. Brown was able to contain Caramanico and most of the usual Penn offensive threats early on, but it was freshman forward Jackie Froatz who kept the Quakers afloat with 12 first-period points off the bench. But, just 20 minutes away from a weekend sweep, the Red and Blue were unable to put the Bears away. Brown opened the second frame with a 20-9 run to gain a slim 50-49 edge. The game seesawed back and forth until the end of the contest, when Ladley and freshman guard Jewel Clark took charge. Clark, in particular, stepped up her game in the closing minutes, after only scoring two points until that time. She was 3-for-3 down the stretch, including a crucial lay-up after blowing by her defender with 34 seconds left to put the Red and Blue ahead, 74-72. "She's just been playing awesome," Ladley said of her teammate, who finished with eight points in the final 4:27, and 10 overall. It is the clutch play that Clark showcased as well as the Quakers' ability to pull out games in the waning moments that has earned the team the top spot in the Ivy League standings, just ahead of Brown.

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