Senior Jewel Clark described the weekend as taking "baby steps." Following this line of thinking, the Penn women's basketball team should be walking sooner rather than later.
The Quakers split their two weekend games at the Retriever Classic in Baltimore, beating host Maryland-Baltimore County 54-37 on Saturday before falling, 74-68, to Delaware State in the championship on Sunday.
Penn was led by Clark, who had a team-high 12 points against UMBC and almost single-handedly gave the team the championship in her return to her native Maryland with her effort against Delaware State. Clark received first team all-tournament honors, along with Penn freshman guard Joey Rhoads.
Despite the loss, the team emerged satisfied with its performance in the early-season tournament.
"Coming in, we wanted to focus on getting our first win," Penn coach Kelly Greenberg said. "We approached this like it was an Ivy weekend, playing back-to-back games.
"We also got to see different types of teams, playing against a team with a lot of transition offense like Delaware State and a team like UMBC, who plays more of a slow-it-down approach."
Clark was also upbeat about the team's progress thus far.
"We're going in the right direction," Clark said. "We're learning what we can do as a team and also what we need to work on. We're looking forward to building confidence as a team and maximizing our talent and strength. You gotta take baby steps first."
Greenberg was disappointed that the team came out flat for the first 10 minutes against Delaware State. But she was encouraged by the team's ability to rally around Clark, as the Quakers came back to take the lead by one point with under five minutes to play in the game.
"Jewel took the game over at one point and really carried us," Greenberg said. "Mostly her intensity and focus, she's very competitive, and it's contagious."
Clark's critique of the team's effort was indicative of her personality.
"We need to play more aggressively and with more intensity," Clark said. "You can't wait till halftime. But you want to learn from the games, and I think we did that this weekend."
The lineup around Clark has been unsettled, as the team is already battling injuries at this early juncture of the season. But judging from this weekend's performance, Clark will hardly be a one-person show.
"Jen Fleischer's a sophomore who didn't play much last season," Greenberg said. "But she got a lot of minutes this weekend to help her get experience. We're very excited about her. And Katie [Kilker], she's just coming back from mono and this was her first action. We have very high expectations for those two."
Greenberg also praised the steady play of guard Mikaelyn Austin, who, along with Clark, is expected to provide senior leadership. Austin led a stingy defense against UMBC.
"I thought the defense was good," Greenberg said. "There was a lot of talk out there, but we put ourselves in too many one-on-one situations [against Delaware State]. We also need to do a better job taking care of the ball (17 turnovers) and we've got to be tougher and attack when we get the chance."
Greenberg did not seem worried about these problems, however, as Penn has eight more games before Ivy League play.
