Going into Saturday's matchup at Cornell, the Penn women's basketball team had scored more than 63 points in a game just once all season.
That "high" came at a "low": in an 81-70 loss to Temple that marked the beginning of a month-long, eight-game losing streak.
In the first half against Cornell, Penn came out flat again, managing just 24 points and trailing by 11 at the break.
But in the second half, the Quakers caught fire, torching the Big Red for a season-high 55 points on 73 percent shooting (16-for-22) from the field and 6-for-10 from three-point range.
Coach Pat Knapp gave his team a pep talk at halftime, but ironically, senior Carrie Biemer said it was his emphasis on defending Cornell's three-point shooters that helped spark Penn's offense.
"We had said that this was a winnable game, and we wanted to turn things around for ourselves," Biemer said. "Once we came out and hit a few shots . we just kept getting really confident and everything fell on top of each other."
Fouling out. Because the Quakers do not have a strong, dependable presence in the frontcourt and only sparingly use dribble penetration, they have not always consistently gotten to the free-throw line.
Last weekend, Harvard and Dartmouth combined to commit only 27 fouls, and against Harvard the free-throw disparity was 25-to-11 in favor of the Crimson.
Foul trouble once again plagued at least one Penn player, as Biemer fouled out in only 13 minutes while trying to contain Columbia star forward Judie Lomax.
"It was a pretty crazy game," Knapp said. "We got poor position, and we know offensively that we need to do different things."
Against the Big Red, the Quakers' offensive surge was aided mightily by 17-for-21 shooting from the line in the second half, while Cornell attempted only 17 free throws in the entire game.
Cornell and Penn tallied 19 fouls apiece, although 10 of Penn's fouls came from only two players, as Caitlin Slover and Katarina Lackner both fouled out.
"You can question how the games have been called if you'd like, they've been very physical," Knapp said. "You could also question our defense. Are we in position so that we don't foul? And the third thing is, get the ball inside, take the ball to the basket, be aggressive."
Powerful rebounding. The Quakers gave up an eye-popping 15 offensive rebounds to Columbia, which is even more staggering when considering that Penn only corralled 15 defensive rebounds of its own.
The battle for the boards has been a struggle for the team all season, but 6-foot-1 sophomore Erin Power was a bright spot this weekend.
"Good rebounders really are made and developed; they're not born, and they don't always have size or tremendous jumping ability," Knapp said. "What Erin has done that has developed over her career is she goes and gets the ball. . That's just effort and desire, so I really like Erin's defensive rebounding."
Power led the team in rebounding in both games (albeit with only five boards against Columbia) and recorded her first career double-double with 11 points, 13 rebounds and six assists against Cornell.
"She goes after the ball so hard," Biemer said. "And she is a lot taller and has a lot more length than a lot of the people that she's guarding. So she has the ability, she has the size advantage and with the intensity on top of that, it can be a huge advantage over a lot of opponents."
