With seven and a half minutes remaining in the first half, Monica Naltner calmly put up the second of two free-throw shots.
The ball came up short, Naltner's only miss at the line last night, but Jennifer Fleischer waltzed nearly uncontested into the lane, grabbed the ball off the rim, and softly put it into the basket. Lafayette's forwards tried to block Fleischer out, but her size advantage was just too much.
The play was indicative of the way the entire night went for the Quakers. The game got out of hand quickly and for all intents and purposes was over at the half.
This was a game that the Quakers needed to dominate. They were playing a Lafayette team that came in at 2-10, had lost by 40 points to Ivy power Harvard, and was easily handled by middle-of-the-road Ivy Yale.
The Quakers did not disappoint, jumping out to a 12-0 lead and subsequently going on runs of 11-2, 12-5 and 10-1.
The Quakers had lost four games in a row. Three of the losses were to solid programs -- Villanova, Temple and No. 10 Ohio State. The other was a one point loss to Marist. Since then, the Red and Blue has shown its resilience. It has now won three straight, and although yesterday's result turned out exactly as expected, it was the way the Quakers won that was telling.
Penn used its inside presence to open up the floor and then went outside to its shooters. The Quakers outscored the Leopards in the paint 32-0, an impressive statistic against anyone, and were five for 10 from behind the three-point line, indicative of how wide-open Penn was on many of its shots.
"We have a strength [inside] and a mismatch there, so that was the obvious thing to do," Penn coach Patrick Knapp said. "I think Lafayette did a good job of doubling down. We got to be better at catching, reading and being more patient in the post."
Although they were dominant yesterday, the Quakers have had trouble inside at some points this season. During Penn's three losses to Temple, Villanova and Ohio State, they were outsized underneath the basket, losing the rebounding battle in two of the three games.
But Penn does not play in a big-name conference, and against smaller players in the Ivy League it will have a significant advantage on the inside.
Continuing to use that inside presence will be imperative if the Quakers hope to win the Ivy League and return to the NCAA tournament. If they instead choose to rely on the outside shot, they still could make waves in the Ancient Eight but may have trouble repeating last year's success.
It is not that the Quakers do not have solid outside threats; Cat Makarewich is shooting more than 60 percent from beyond the arc, and Karen Habrukowich is over 40 percent. But there will be important games when shots will simply not fall. In those cases, Penn must continue to pound the ball inside relentlessly.
"As you get it inside, that will just open up our shooters outside," Naltner said. "It will open up Karen and Cat that much more once we get it inside."
The Red and Blue has one of the most imposing presences in the Ivy League in Fleischer, and with the emergence of Naltner as a mobile threat on the block, the Quakers have a tandem that any team will fear.
Luckily, the Quakers recognize the importance of their sizeadvantage.
"We worked on just getting it in, running in transition and really looking in," Naltner said. "We had a size advantage tonight, so looking in to not only Fleischer, but to get it in to even guards who are posting up."
Knapp noted that there are some Ivy teams with good size but believes that Penn can still utilize its strength against many of them.
"I think that we can get the ball inside," Knapp said. "It's going to be a big factor for us, but I'm hoping to get some of our perimeter people off a little bit more."
Even though Penn scored 68 points, only two players hit double figures, proving how team- oriented this squad has been so far this season. There is not one player that will be able to do everything for the Quakers, but their forwards will be thecatalysts.
If they fail to use them correctly and continuously, the Quakers may find themselves on the outside looking in -- in more ways than one.
Jeff Greenwald is a sophomore economics major from Cleveland and is sports editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is jbg@sas.upenn.edu.
