Luke Nawrocki, a junior tight end on the football team, yelled from the stands as his girlfriend Jess Knapp was whistled for her third foul late in the second half.
“Come on Ref, give her a break; it’s her 21st birthday!”
But neither Knapp nor the women’s basketball team could catch a break against Yale Saturday night, as they fell, 66-53.
After losing to the Bulldogs on Jan. 28 by nine, the Quakers hoped their recently improved offense and trademark stingy defense would change their fortunes.
After Saturday’s performance, however, coach Mike McLaughlin described the defensive effort as the “worst team defense of the season.”
The final score was not indicative of the Bulldogs’ (11-13, 7-3 Ivy) absolute leveling of the Quakers (10-13, 4-5), with Yale leading by as much as 27 with 5:16 left in the game.
Penn then went on a 14-0 run sparked by a flurry of shots from sophomore combo guard Brianna Bradford and senior forward Erin Power, but it was simply too little, too late.
Bradford led the Quakers with 13 points and three three-pointers in only 14 minutes while Power had eight points and two assists.
Hampered by foul trouble, freshman standout Alyssa Baron was limited to nine points on 4-of-16 shooting in just 24 minutes. She committed three fouls in the first 10 minutes of the game, and her foul trouble limited the Quakers’ offensive power for the rest of the half.
“She got what she deserved on the bench; you can’t commit those fouls at this level.” McLaughlin said. “That’s okay though, she’ll learn from it.”
Knapp collected a team-high 10 rebounds, but couldn’t seem to find the bottom of the net, connecting on just one of her eight shots.
But for all of the Quakers’ offensive woes, the game was lost on the defensive end.
Although Penn forced Yale into 21 turnovers — including five steals by freshman Meghan McCullough — the Red and Blue allowed the Bulldogs to shoot 53 percent from the field.
Guard Megan Vasquez and forward Mady Gobrecht, Yale’s two leading scorers, combined for 41 points while controlling both the paint and the perimeter.
“We just didn’t stop them from executing.” McLaughlin said after the game. “Like I told the girls, sometimes you just get your butt kicked, and that’s what happened tonight.”
The home loss was the Quakers’ first in Ivy play this season, and it snapped their first three-game conference streak since the 2008-2009 season.
“If we take it as a lesson that we totally got outplayed, I think this game will be beneficial going forward,” McLaughlin said.
The team will try to get back on track on their Empire State road trip next weekend, playing at Columbia on Friday night and Cornell on Saturday.
