Freshman to star in second Ivy weekend for Penn women's basketball

Home, sweet home.

The Palestra will see its first Ivy action of the year from Penn women’s basketball as the Quakers take on Cornell on Friday and Columbia on Saturday.

Although the Red and Blue (11-6, 2-1 Ivy) are heading into this weekend’s doubleheader on a three-game winning streak, including the program’s first road sweep of conference foes Dartmouth and Harvard since 2004, coach Mike McLaughlin is not letting his team get too far ahead of itself.

“We talked about each game being separate and playing each game for 40 complete minutes,” McLaughlin said. “We have to take the one in front of us as the most important.”

Penn’s first test will come from a Big Red squad that has barely faltered all winter long. Cornell (12-6, 3-1) was undefeated in the month of January, although its six-game winning streak was snapped last weekend with a close loss to Yale.

“I just think that Cornell is very well-coached,” McLaughlin said. “We’re going to have to handle a little bit of pressure.”

Next comes Columbia (6-12, 0-4), a team McLaughlin describes as “hungry” despite its winless conference record. The key to taming the Lions lies with shutting down sophomore forward Tori Oliver, who currently is third in the Ancient Eight with 17.3 points per game.

“Each [team] offers a different challenge,” McLaughlin said. “But at this point we’ve seen a bunch of teams: We’ve seen some fast teams, some athletic teams, some structured teams and we’ve played all different styles, so hopefully we’ll be able to adapt pretty quickly.”

The pressure won’t just come from adapting to the offensive schemes of the Big Red or the Lions, however. This weekend will be the first conference game in the Cathedral of College Basketball for the Quakers’ four freshmen.

One freshman in particular has heavy expectations on her shoulder: Anna Ross.

“She’s had a huge responsibility at point guard,” McLaughlin said. “She has really developed in terms of her basketball maturity, her basketball study and her kind of play at this level.”

If last weekend was a test of Ross’ growth on the court, shepassed with flying colors. After going nine-for-nine from the line and pacing the team at 19 points, the point guard earned Big 5 Player of the Week honors.

But heading into the games against Cornell and Columbia, the freshman is not dwelling on her accolades.

“[Against Harvard] I was taking more of a leadership role as a point guard, which is something I need to work on,” Ross said. “During the Ivy season, we really need people to take charge of this team.”

At the beginning of the season, that role fell to returning players like senior guard Kathleen Roche and sophomore center Sydney Stipanovich. But as the winter months have worn on, the freshman trio of Ross, forward Michelle Nwokedi and guard Beth Brzozowski have stepped up to match the vigor of the Quakers’ veterans in the paint.

“All three of them showed they can handle any situation, which really gives us a lot of options,” McLaughlin said.

That versatility will be key for the weekend ahead if the Red and Blue want to keep their proverbial brooms a-sweeping.

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