Playing at an unusually cool Palestra, the Penn women's basketball team shook off its recent cold stretch by rolling to a 84-63 victory over winless Lafayette.
Senior Jewel Clark tied a career high with 33 points to go with her 13 boards, and sophomore Jennifer Fleischer tied a Penn single-game record with seven blocks. The Quakers (7-6, 1-0 Ivy) jumped on the hapless Leopards (0-16, 0-3 Patriot) early, scoring the first eight points and holding their opponent scoreless for over four minutes to start the game.
Lafayette got no closer than three points the rest of the evening, and Penn coach Kelly Greenberg was able to clear her bench for the final five minutes. Still, the Quakers and their coach were not totally satisfied with their performance after a disappointing loss at Drexel last week.
Team rebounding, again, topped the coach's list of concerns after the game. Despite dominating throughout, the Quakers were still outrebounded for most of the night against an undermanned Leopards unit.
"As a team, that bothers us," Greenberg said. "Going into the game, the one thing we talked a lot about was rebounding and that we have to outrebound our opponent.
"We're not gonna beat Brown and Yale being outrebounded. They're gonna beat us. And I take it very personally and I know our team's gonna take it personally."
Actually, the Quakers ended up with the rebounding advantage, 46-45. But Penn knows that it must improve in this area if it is to have success in the Ancient Eight.
Against Lafayette, however, the Quakers rode several strong individual performances to their seventh win of the season.
With the Red and Blue ahead by nine points in the middle of the second half, Clark scored 18 of the game's next 23 points to squash any hope of a Leopards comeback. She missed a free throw with 2:20 left that would have given her a new career high, and was then given the rest of the night off.
Fleischer dominated the inside game, finishing with 17 points and 14 boards to go along with her seven blocks. Lafayette seemed afraid to even try the inside of Penn's defense when Fleischer was on the floor.
Penn also received strong performances from guards Amanda Kammes and Cat Makarewich. These efforts led to fast starts in both halves.
Kammes wreaked havoc on defense to start the game, hand-checking and hustling her way to two steals in the game's first three minutes. The junior guard, who attributes her stronger play of late to increased confidence after coming back from an injury, made her presence felt throughout the game. She tallied six assists, four steals and two of the Quakers' 11 blocks to go along with three points.
As good as Kammes' play was on defense at the beginning of the game, Makarewich was even better on offense to start the second half.
After scoring just one point before the intermission, the junior guard began the second half with a layup to extend Penn's lead to 35-25. She then dropped threes on two of the next three possessions before drawing the defense toward her and beautifully setting up teammate Mikaelyn Austin for another three. That shot boosted the Quakers' lead to 44-28 and halted any momentum the Leopards might have had coming out of halftime.
Greenberg did not seem surprised to see players on her team taking their games to the next level, as Ivy play is soon set to begin.
"We have so many talents on our team," Greenberg said. "I feel like we do have the type of team that different girls can step up in different games."
