Drexel senior forward Gabriela Marginean caught a quick pass under Penn’s basket and just managed to throw the ball up to the backboard, getting the lucky roll and drawing the foul. Her successful free throw completed the three-point play, extending the Dragons’ lead over Penn to 46-29 with just over eight minutes to play in the game.
The Penn women’s basketball team wouldn’t get significantly closer than that for the remainder of the game, en route to a 56-42 loss yesterday afternoon at Drexel’s Daskalakis Athletic Center.
Marginean’s free throw was her 17th and final point of the game. It was the 1,898th point of her career, placing her three points shy of breaking Drexel’s career scoring record set by Michelle Maslowski in 2002. She also took in 11 rebounds and dished out a career-high four assists.
Sophomore forward Kamile Nacickaite led the Dragons (1-1) with 19 points in the contest. She was 6-for-11 from the field, including 5-for-9 from downtown.
The Quakers (0-1) opened their season with a loss for the second consecutive year. They began last season with an 0-6 record, winning their first game Dec. 5 against Navy.
“I think we were prepared well; we stepped up and played solid team defense,” Penn coach Mike McLaughlin said after his first game at the helm of the Quakers’ program — and first coaching in Division I. “I was really proud of our defense. We gave [Drexel] too many second chances, and had to work so hard to try and compensate for that. Offensively we struggled a little bit, but I think we’ll be better with that.”
Penn made only 15 of the 49 field goals (30.6 percent) it attempted in the game.
“I think we need better continuity on our offense,” McLaughlin said. “All those things: shot selection, running, executing everything, hard cuts, we’re still working on that — we’re still getting there.”
Penn senior guard Sarah Bucar led the team in points, with 10, and in assists, with three. She was the only player on either team to play all 40 minutes of the game.
Penn junior guard Kim Adams and forward Jerin Smith each scored nine while pulling down seven rebounds.
“We didn’t come out with that fire that we needed,” Smith said. “I think Drexel came out a bit harder.
“I think on defense we did pretty well,” she said. “Once we get our offense down, we should be pretty good.”
The game started on fairly even terms, with Penn trailing 15-12 with just under seven minutes to play in the first half. The Red and Blue were only down 27-20 at halftime.
“We just wanted to come out with the same thing,” McLaughlin said of the strategy entering the second half. “We thought we didn’t have to adjust that much defensively.”
It was still a seven-point deficit about three and a half minutes into the second half. But a 17-5 run by Drexel essentially put the game away.
“Again, if we could have made a couple more baskets it might have helped us a bit.,” McLaughlin said. “But credit to [the Dragons], they guarded us well.”
