Last night's Penn-Drexel women's basketball contest evolved into a battle of six-footers.
As expected, Dragons center Michelle Maslowski was dominant in the post. Heading into the game averaging nearly a double-double (20.8 points per game, 9.8 rebounds per game), the reigning America East Conference Player of the year's 22 point, 12 rebound performance was seemingly another day's work for the Drexel frontliner.
Penn freshman center Katie Kilker's 24 points came as a bit more of a surprise, however.
"I thought she came ready to play," Penn coach Kelly Greenberg said. "She had a couple easy ones and she also made some tough shots offensively and I think that gave her some confidence."
Heading into last night's game, Kilker had shown flashes of emerging into the steady post threat that Greenberg envisioned when she added the Langhorne, Pa., native to the Quakers' roster.
After struggling in the early season, Kilker brought all the pieces together in her second Ivy game to score a then-career-high 21 points against Dartmouth.
Though she was somewhat inconsistent in Penn's last game against Harvard -- scoring just six points in the Quakers loss to Harvard at the Palestra last Saturday -- Penn's sixth woman was the mode of consistency last night at the Daskalakis Center.
"I thought Katie played a great game in both halves," Greenberg said.
While the rest of the Quakers had great difficulty finding their shooting touch -- Kilker withstanding, Penn shot 10-for-45 from the floor (22.2 percent) -- the freshman became the focus of the Penn offense.
Continually guarded by smaller Dragons opponents, Kilker owned a decided mismatch on nearly every Penn possession. With Drexel being forced to front Kilker, the Red and Blue exploited this advantage, using it as an opportunity to work on their skills delivering the ball into the post.
"They didn't make any special adjustments in the frontcourt," Kilker said. "They played me man-to-man and so our guards just lobbed the ball into me.
"No fancy moves," she said. "Just take what the defense gives you."
As Kilker padded her point totals, the Quakers' backcourt also picked up some fine numbers of its own.
Despite floundering to a disappointing 3-for-14 shooting effort from the floor, Penn guard Karen Habrukowich was nearly flawless in her hi-low execution and recorded a game-high seven assists.
"Karen Habrukowich found [Katie] for a number of easy layups," Greenberg said.
Kilker's emergence, however, did not come without consequence for Penn.
For the third straight game, senior tri-captain Julie Epton played under 15 minutes.
Although she scored eight points and snatched four rebounds -- far exceeding her disappointing two and zero point totals against Dartmouth and Harvard, respectively -- the forward was limited to only 11 minutes.
We're "just not getting what we want from [Epton]," Greenberg said. "Katie has been deserving of [the playing time].
"When Julie Epton starts playing, we're going to be a very good team. But we're just not getting that right now."
