If the Penn women's basketball team doesn't play another overtime game, the final tally for their Ivy League season will be 570 minutes long.
But that season -- and any hopes of an Ivy League title -- were salvaged in just two minutes Friday night at Columbia.
Two minutes. One hundred and twenty seconds.
In that short time interval, inside Columbia's small, underground gymnasium, the Quakers managed to break away from their light blue and white opponents and gain a lead that would carry them to victory.
In those two minutes the season was saved. Coach Patrick Knapp and his players could finally breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that they were still afloat in the conference.
Two minutes is a long time to hold your breath.
But desperate times call for desperate measures. A loss to the Lions (11-10, 4-4 Ivy) would have been disastrous for the Quakers (12-8, 5-2), who trailed 28-27 at the end of the first half of Friday's game at Columbia.
The first portion of the second half brought little solace to an anxious Penn bench; the Lions and Quakers remained neck-and-neck for the first nine minutes.
With 11 minutes remaining in the game, Penn led by a mere two points.
A grey cloud settled over the Red and Blue, who seemed destined to repeat the devastation of the previous weekend's losses to Harvard (5-2, 13-7) and Dartmouth (7-0, 11-8).
Shortly after the 10-minute mark, though, sophomore Monica Naltner hit a field goal to spark her team's subsequent 10-0 run.
In just under two minutes, the Quakers managed two blocks, two defensive rebounds, one offensive rebound, two field goals and two three-pointers.
Each and every action counted. Each player poured her heart into the desperate attempt to win.
With 10 points in two minutes, Penn mounted a daunting 52-40 lead and cruised the rest of the way to their 63-51 victory. It took just two minutes to turn the game around. But those moments enabled the weekend sweep by catalyzing the Quakers' efforts at Cornell the following night.
These road wins on Friday and Saturday not only boosted morale, but may have also saved the season.
Penn is still only hanging by a thread in the race for the Ivy League title. Dartmouth sits atop the Ivy standings at 7-0 in the league with Brown following close behind at 6-2. Tied with Harvard at 5-2 in conference play, Penn is still in a decent, though not ideal, position to overtake the teams above it.
However, a loss at this point would end any lingering hopes at an Ivy League title. The Quakers must complete this final leg of the 2004-05 season undefeated.
Without those two crucial minutes of play Friday night, Penn's fate, both that night and in the bigger picture, would have been dismal. A loss against Columbia might have disheartened the Quakers. Saturday night's game at Cornell was a close enough contest -- too close in fact -- as Penn just edged out the last-place Big Red 51-50.
Who knows how a Friday night defeat would have affected the extremely competitive contest in Ithaca, N.Y.?
All guesses aside, it is impossible to deny that, when placed under pressure Friday night, the Quakers delivered. In two minutes, they poured every ounce of energy into an inspirational run that saved their season. But the relief of last weekend's pivotal effort is not without a sharper edge.
Just as two minutes are sufficient to salvage a season's dreams, they are also enough to destroy them.
The rest of Penn's 2004-05 Ivy League season will bring many minutes of play: 280 to be exact -- unless they go to overtime, of course. With any luck, each of those minutes will bring a swift Red and Blue offense and a solid wall of defense so that, even if for just two minutes, the team can breathe a little easier.
Lily Katz is a freshman in the College from Scarsdale, N.Y. Her e-mail address is lnk@sas.upenn.edu.
