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(01/24/97 10:00am)
Morris is 'ashamed' after the Quakers sink 21 of 23 free throws for their sixth straight win over the Explorers. With more poise than panache, the Penn men's basketball team methodically disposed of an excitable La Salle squad, 67-60, last night at the CoreStates Spectrum. Sophomore forward Paul Romanczuk scored four of his team-high 16 points in the final two minutes, and junior Garett Kreitz added 12 as the Quakers (6-7) earned their first victory in five tries this season against a city opponent. The victory was also Penn's sixth in a row over the Explorers (7-7), a fact that was not lost on La Salle coach Speedy Morris. "[The Quakers] were better prepared, they were better coached and I'm ashamed for every La Salle alum," Morris said. "For Penn to beat us six years in a row, and especially this year, is embarrassing. "They have a great school, a great coach and a great program. But we're an Atlantic 10 team and we should beat an Ivy League team." Last night, the Explorers were fortunate to hang around as long as they did, after Penn spent much of the first half dissecting La Salle's porous zone with some deft interior passing, and built a modest 34-28 lead at intermission. But it was from the foul line that the Quakers really drained La Salle, sinking better than 90 percent of their free throws, including 15 of 17 in the second half. "Making foul shots was certainly important for us," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "It was key for our game. If we can get to the line that many times -- and we're not a prolific foul-shooting team -- and shoot than kind of percentage, it's certainly going to help our chances to win." If Dunphy continues to get quality minutes out of his freshmen, it won't hurt Penn's chances either. Against La Salle, freshmen guards Michael Jordan and Matt Langel chipped in 10 points each while Jordan pulled down a game-high nine rebounds. Meanwhile, the Explorers, who shot only 33 percent for the game, didn't offer much offensively outside of standout freshman Donnie Carr's extensive repertoire. Carr, who is one of the top scorers in the nation at 26.4 points per game, dropped in a game-high 22, but at 6-for-25 from the floor, he probably helped the Quakers more than he hurt them. "[Carr] is the only guy on the team who can break people down," Morris said. "He forced a couple shots, but when you're not getting into your offense and the big guys aren't screening, then you've got to go to another avenue and that's it. "They're great kids but they're not good enough. I don't want to look forward to next year but the recruits we've got are better than the guys we have right now. Two of them would start for us right now." As the Quakers' grueling early season schedule winds down, their concern is for the more immediate future. Last night's win ended a three-game slide and likely restored some of Penn's confidence after being beaten up by No. 7 Maryland and suffering a disappointing six-point loss to Drexel. "I'd like to think that the schedule that we played will help us throughout the rest of the year," Dunphy said. "One of the things you try to avoid is if you do get beat up a little bit that you don't get down on yourself and you understand the level of competition was outstanding, and I think these guys are bright enough to understand that." Romanczuk seemed to think they were. "We've got 13 more games and I think we can win 13 straight, I really do," he said. At least one other person at the CoreStates Spectrum last night agreed. "I think Penn can run the table," Morris said of the Quakers' Ivy League chances. "They're going to end up with 18 or 19 wins."
(10/17/96 9:00am)
The better team won Saturday for no other reason than the fact that Paris Childress can't throw a football straight. By some accounts, that is exactly what happened with the Lions facing third-and-long and trailing 19-13 on their first and only overtime possession. Columbia's coaching staff, after a careful review of the Quakers' defensive tendencies, decided to send "four receivers vertical." Or in layman's terms, they told everybody to go deep. Now Childress, the Lions' sophomore backup quarterback, had already thrown three interceptions on the day, including two gifts to Penn nickelback Joe Piela, who returned them for a combined 132 yards and a touchdown. (That would make Piela the top offensive player on either team Saturday.) So, of course, with the game on the line, it was again Piela who Childress picked on when he stepped up in the pocket and floated the ball in the direction of Lions wide receiver Dennis Lee, who was cutting toward the middle at the three-yard line. Piela, who is not necessarily known as a speedy cover guy, appeared to be in perfect position to make a play and force fourth down and salvage the game and be the proverbial unlikely hero. Except the ball wasn't where it was supposed to be. Childress's pass, like so many of the balls he threw Saturday, sailed off the mark -- a bit behind his target. Lee reached back and snatched it, spun left and, in a split-second whirl, tumbled into the end zone to a chorus of stunned silence. Kick the extra point. Automatic. 20-19. Game over. End of story? You would like to leave it at that. Call it a fluke, a lucky bounce, an old-fashioned, that's-the-way-the-cookie-crumbles. But to do that would do Columbia a disservice. It would ignore the fact that the teams who win the ugly ones -- and be assured, Saturday's game was not easy on the eyes -- are the ones that give themselves a chance to win. And therein lies just about the only difference between Penn and Columbia on Saturday. Both teams turned in gritty defensive efforts to carry the load for their dysfunctional offenses. Both teams were as likely to score on defense or special teams as on offense. Both teams tried to run the football, and both teams made costly mistakes in the passing game. Both teams drew enough flags to decorate the United Nations. The difference on the scoreboard was exactly one point, and that one point was entirely a matter of fundamentals and concentration. It was a matter of executing the easiest play in football, the gridiron's equivalent of the intentional walk -- kicking an extra point. True, if you consult the Elias Sports Bureau or some other statistical authority, you will find PATs are occasionally blocked or even missed. But there isn't any actuarial chart that can account for the three Columbia players who waltzed through the heart of the Penn offensive line so fast they had time left over to do the Macarena before smothering Penn kicker Jeremiah Greathouse. Brett Bryant got credit for the block, but he just happened to be leading the conga line. As Penn coach Al Bagnoli later observed, "Greathouse never had a chance." They say that no football game is ever won or lost on a single play, let alone a point-after. Well, whoever they are, I'm betting they were somewhere other than Franklin Field Saturday afternoon, because if Greathouse has a chance to kick that extra point, it's knotted at 20, and they still might be in overtime. But he didn't and it isn't and they aren't, and the plain fact is the Quakers now stand at 2-2 -- 0-2 in the Ivies. Each offensive possession is an adventure. Injuries have taken their toll on a defense that was already inexperienced behind the front five. After four games, it is clear Penn is not the team that won 24 games in a row, nor should anyone expect it to be. But what the Quakers' faithful should expect is that their football program live up to its reputation for being well-coached and fundamentally sound. It is acceptable for Penn to be beaten, but not for the Quakers to beat themselves. And by my account, that is exactly what happened. Allow me, then, to correct myself. The better team won Saturday for one very good reason. Columbia gave itself a chance to win.
(01/15/96 10:00am)
Penn slips past Yale, Brown Last month on Palestra Place: A freak play in the final moments of the Atlantic City Shootout left point guard Jamie Lyren with a cast on his foot, which will not be removed until early February, while backup center Vigor Kapetanovich left the team for the remainder of the year to address academic concerns. Forwards Cedric Laster and Bill Guthrie also missed time to sort out academic issues, while guards Donald Moxley and Garett Kreitz shed their warm-up jackets to lead the team in scoring in the first starts of their respective careers. The Quakers fell into a free-throw-shooting drought in the Arizona desert, and still the record for consecutive Ivy League victories crept up three more notches to 46. So went the winter break chapter of the continuing Penn men's basketball saga. After opening the Ivy League season with an enormous road victory over Princeton on Jan. 6, the Quakers scrapped their way past Brown Friday and Yale Saturday -- 66-56 and 74-71 respectively -- to jump out to an early lead in the free-for-all for this season's Ancient Eight crown. On Dec. 29, the Quakers traveled to Tempe, Ariz., for the Arizona State Tournament where Penn suffered a pair of 12-point losses -- 77-65 to Detroit Mercy and 79-67 to Southern Methodist in the next day's consolation game. "They're still not sure who they are as a team," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said after watching his team barely hold off the Bears. "Hopefully, we're growing and learning at this stretch of the season. "Our defense is going to have to carry us. I don't think we're a great offensive team by any stretch. We're going to need that consistency on defense." Against Brown, the Quakers (4-5, 3-0 Ivy League) got 18 points each from Kreitz and swingman Ira Bowman while center Tim Krug tied his own school record with six blocked shots. Krug, who was isolated for most of the game on the Bears' 240-pound center James Joseph, brushed away a Joseph hook shot and poked away an entry pass on consecutive trips downcourt to key an inspired late defensive effort. An 8-for-12 team effort from the charity stripe in the final minute-and-a-half proved good enough to preserve the victory. And of course, it didn't hurt that Brian Lloyd, Brown's all-Ivy sharpshooter who had already poured in 20 points, turned his left ankle on a jump shot with 4 minutes, 54 seconds remaining. "We're probably going to need this kind of victory a number of times over the course of the year," Dunphy said. "We've got to be better at the foul line down the stretch. Our defense was as good as it can be later in the game, and we're certainly going to need that. Our kids know how to win and we're going to need that badly." That poise became essential in a rhythmless showdown with Yale the next night. The Quakers squandered a 12-point halftime lead, and fell behind 47-45 when the Elis' Gabe Hunterton, last season's Ivy League rookie of the year, capped the Yale comeback with a twine-tickling trey. However, Kreitz, who had been quiet most of the night, answered immediately with a trifecta of his own from the left wing to ignite a decisive 13-1 run. "It took us until late in the game to really come up big," Dunphy said. "I thought Ira made a couple of big jumpers in the lane, Donald Moxley's three, and Garett Kreitz's three was big as well." Kreitz, who got an unexpected chance to break into the starting lineup when Lyren broke his foot Dec. 9, against Penn State, has made the most of it. The sophomore guard, who has seen mostly mop-up duty in his career thus far, has averaged 12.4 points per game in the five games he has started and assumed the team lead in three-pointers with 16. His range is so good that it took Kreitz four starts just to hit his first two-point field goal. "People have had the opportunity to step up and have taken advantage of it," Bowman said. "Here are people who have been playing behind guys -- in Garett's case for more than a year now. People are coming into this year having worked hard over the summer and put themselves in a position where they would be able to take advantage of an opportunity. "It's the same thing with Donald. He hasn't played for three years now, and here he is stepping up and hitting big shots. They give us more weapons down the stretch." Moxley, who led the Quakers with a career-high 19 points on torrid 8-of-11 shooting in his first start against Princeton, has given Penn a lift since he entered the starting lineup -- particularly since he is one of the few Quakers capable of breaking down defense off the dribble in addition to drilling jumpers. With Penn's offense at times stagnant and its free throw rolling off the rim nearly as often as they roll in, a multidimensional player like Moxley will be a valuable asset as the bulk of the Ivy League season approaches. "We're still trying to figure out who's going to get the big basket at the right time," Dunphy said. "Obviously, Ira and Tim are going to have to do most of that, but we've got to be better." One player who will not be around to pick up any of the slack is Kapetanovich, who has elected to concentrate on his Wharton studies this semester. "He's going to sit out the rest of the season and really concentrate on his academics, take care of that, and hopefully next year he'll be back and ready to go." Laster returned to the bench Friday against Brown after sorting out some academic problems, although he did not play. Guthrie is expected to return shortly. Dunphy said none of the three players were in any way technically ineligible. For Lyren, who will be X-rayed again on Jan 18., the optimistic target date for him to return is Feb. 2, when the Quakers resume Ivy play against Cornell. Lyren was averaging 7.8 points and 2.5 assists per game when he went down.
(12/07/95 10:00am)
TOWSON, Md. -- It took almost every bit of a poised stretch run, but Penn managed to overcome its own lethargy and Towson State's unheralded frontcourt to scrape out its first win of the season last night, 67-61. The Quakers (1-2) rallied from a 10-point second-half deficit behind Ira Bowman and an inspired Tim Krug, and played their best defense of the season in holding the Tigers (2-2) to a single basket for more than nine minutes down the stretch. "It's a real important win," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "We were right there in the first two games. Everything is a learning experience but this certainly is a big one for us to be down 10 in the second half, and all of sudden do almost everything to perfection over the last nine or 10 minutes." The Tigers, ignited by the sharpshooting Stevie Thomas, opened up their largest lead of the game at 43-33 with an 11-4 run to start the second half. Thomas, Towson State's 240-pound power forward who matched his career-high with 21 points, surprised the Quakers with his long-range touch. "Our scouting report didn't say he could shoot three-pointers," Dunphy said. "We saw the films. He was making 17 and 18 footers. He just wasn't making 20 footers." Penn, however, would answer with its own fireworks. Bowman, who scored 16 of his game-high 27 points in the second half, and Nat Graham found their own shooting touch. Each chipped in a trifecta and a layup to bring the Quakers to within two at 45-43. Then Krug, who scored only two points in nine first-half minutes after an abysmal 1-of-12 shooting performance against Saint Louis, broke out of his slump in timely fashion with a pair of jumpers and a lay-up. And after Bowman cut through the heart of the Tigers' defense and converted a three-point play, Jamie Lyren snuck along the baseline for a layup, giving Penn a 54-53 lead it would never relinquish. "We all responded and I think that's something that we had to have coming down the stretch," Bowman said. "I think Bill Guthrie, Tim Krug, all the big people who were in the game came up with some big rebounds. "The defense stepped up. I think our post players responded. During a timeout, we got in each others' faces and let them know we couldn't let [Thomas] keep scoring. I thin Tim personally stepped up and accepted the challenge." Surprisingly, it was the Tigers' highly-touted veteran backcourt of Scooter Alexander (3-of-13 from the field) and Ralph Blalock (3 turnovers) who struggled, particularly in crunch time. "I thought our guards did a real good job defensively against their combination of guards," Dunphy said. "I think our second half defense is what won the game for us. We came pressing out on their guards and at least challenging every shot." And the Quakers, who had been battered around in the paint all evening by Thomas and Tigers' center Matt Dellinger (13 points), finally found some pleasure in their pain as they picked up 11 of their final 13 points from the charity stripe to close out the game. "When the chips were down, they responded. They just decided they were going to pick it up defensively," Dunphy said. The Quakers needed to be almost perfect after a poor first-half in which Penn shot only 37 percent and committed 12 turnovers. Only the ability of Ira Bowman to individually break down the Towson State defense kept Penn within striking distance. "I was shocked we were only down by six [at halftime]," Dunphy said. "We should have been down by 20. We needed to get more disciplined. We needed to make better decisions." In the end, however, the Quakers managed to come out on the right side of the only decision the mattered.
(10/23/95 9:00am)
The plays bore unrefined names like smashmouth and gang, while the stars bore unfamiliar ones like Tonelli and Arbogast. The Penn offense, shot down repeatedly by interceptions in recent weeks, folded its wings Saturday and bludgeoned Brown for 58 points behind its unheralded group of tight ends and U-backs. Missing from the offense's outskirts were the lithe featherweights who tickle the scales at a buck and change. In their place, Penn inserted a set of boxcars and a Mack truck, and turned its tailback trio loose behind them. The results were nothing short of earth-shattering. On the game's fifth play, the Quakers' offensive line deluxe softened the right corner enough for Aman Abye to scamper 48 yards untouched down the sideline and into the end zone. And that was only a taste of the medicine the Bears would have shoved down their throats all afternoon. "It's not often when you run with three and four tight ends that you put that many points on the board," said tight end Matt Tonelli, who also led the Quakers with four receptions for 81 yards. "But in the game plan we had to do the job, and I thought we stepped it up as a group. Travis Arbogast and Greg Karcich, all of them had a great day as far as blocking and making routes." By halftime, Abye and Jasen Scott had abused Brown's defense for 161 yards with Tonelli, Arbogast and the bruising Kevin Tucker leading the way. Not to be outdone, Dion Camp broke free for a 48-yard touchdown run of his own in the final minutes of the third quarter to give Penn its largest lead at 58-14. "[Offensive coordinator] Chuck Priore and his staff really did a nice job on offense," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. "The Brown defense presents some unique problems in terms of the way they line up with all the movements and the slants and the twists. "It becomes real difficult to run a conventional offense against them. So we went to a zone blocking scheme and I felt we took them out of that movement stuff. Consequently, we were able to move the ball." But the ground game, which pounded out 313 total yards, was only half of Priore's scheme. Phase two called for a little misdirection, a little slight of hand, and some not-so-little ends to tiptoe their way into the Bears' secondary. Little more than an afterthought in the Quakers' passing game to date, the tight end corp caught as many passes Saturday (six) as it had in Penn's first five games combined. "The whole offensive line waved toward the play so when I play-faked, the tight ends just sort of snuck out," quarterback Mark DeRosa said. "They were falling for the fake and the tight ends ended up being wide open all day." So wide open, in fact, that Arbogast, a sophomore who usually backs up Tonelli, turned his first career reception into a 28-yard touchdown when the Brown secondary just seemed to ignore him. The day, however, belonged to Tonelli, the 230-pound product of the Marmion Military Academy who rarely shows up on the stat sheet. And in the second quarter Saturday, he found himself in even rarer territory -- five yards behind the Bears' safeties. DeRosa, who was almost perfect on the day, hit Tonelli in stride for the senior's second career touchdown. "It was incredible," Tonelli said of the 28-yard touchdown strike. "I'm not used to getting that many yards. I'm used to turning around and getting hit right away, but it was kind of nice to turn it upfield and get a few yards. I love the feeling."
(10/09/95 9:00am)
NEW YORK -- The classic drop back passer met the unorthodox option scrambler for a Saturday afternoon showdown in the Big Apple, and head to head it was no contest. The jackrabbit feet and sheer will of Columbia quarterback Mike Cavanaugh overshadowed what was statistically Mark DeRosa's finest day of the season, and, not coincidentally, the Quakers' worst. DeRosa threw for a season-high 310 yards and two touchdowns, but it was passes he didn't complete -- and the pair of interceptions he did -- that proved to be a major factor in Penn's first loss in two and a half years. It all came down to poise and intangibles -- those nondescript words coaches throw around to define that magical confidence some players seem to exude, and up until 48 hours ago the Quakers personified. But Saturday, it was Cavanaugh, a converted wide receiver, who danced, darted and occasionally passed his way through the Penn defense and into the Columbia football annals. The senior quarterback from Troy, Mich., who platooned as the Lions' signal caller last year in addition to catching passes and returning kicks, accounted for 82 percent of Columbia's offense. Cavanaugh completed 10-of-15 passes for 147 yards, and ran for 109 yards and two touchdowns in the Lions' hybrid offense. "Cavanaugh presents a dimension that's very difficult to defend against," Bagnoli said. "We knew he was going to cause some problems. That didn't surprise anybody. We knew he was a terrific athlete, and we had our hands full with him the entire day." But of all the numbers Cavanaugh put up, it was the goose egg that he recorded in the turnover column that may have sealed the Quakers' fate. "I think the better team won today," Bagnoli said. "They had no turnovers and made the plays when they had to make them." And they made the plays DeRosa didn't. On Penn's second possession, the Quakers' offense rolled down the field on the strength of Aman Abye's 59 rushing yards, in spite of Mark Fabish's weekly faux pas which turned out to be a sure touchdown falling through his arms. DeRosa would make an even bigger mistake. Facing third and goal from the two, Penn's quarterback rolled left, looking for Fabish sliding across just behind the line of scrimmage. DeRosa cocked and fired right into the arms of Columbia free safety Joe Cormier, who stepped in front and rambled 39 yards before he was dragged down from behind. "I didn't see the guy," DeRosa said. "I guess he just followed Mark all the way across the field. He appeared wide open when I came out. It's a little tougher ball throwing it over the left side. And I waited a little too long. The guy made a helluva play." It was nothing compared to what Cavanaugh would do on the next two plays. He found flanker Chris Valvo, who led the Lions with five receptions, slanting across the middle for a 27-yard gain on the first play after the turnover. Play number two called for a basic option left. But Cavanaugh, surveying the line of scrimmage as he swept left, was surprised to find a big opening just beyond the tackle. He slipped through the hole, accelerated, and cut through the secondary to the end zone like he was slicing butter. "The defense kind of overpursued and I just cut it up," Cavanaugh said. "The lane just opened up the middle." Cavanaugh was given an inch, and took a mile. DeRosa was simply taken. And it wasn't just once. Trailing by three, and facing third and long in the fourth quarter, DeRosa tried to dance his way free of a collapsing pocket. But Columbia's Charlie Bettinelli, apparently unimpressed by DeRosa's theatrics, promptly belted him, forcing a fumble that teammate Eric Keck recovered. Capitalizing on Penn's mistake, Cavanaugh engineered a flawless seven-play, 47-yard touchdown drive to put the Lions on top 24-14. Ironically, the score came on none other than third and goal from the two, when Cavanaugh sprinted to the right pylon and converted the big play. Cormier wasn't finished with DeRosa yet. On the ensuing drive, the free safety killed any possible Quakers rally when he picked off his second pass of the day, this time breaking in front of Miles Macik over the middle. The fact that DeRosa's eyes never left Macik didn't hurt Cormier's chances. "All you do is follow the quarterback's eyes," Cormier said. And all Columbia did Saturday was follow it's rascally quarterback's lead, straight into immortality.
(10/02/95 9:00am)
Jeremiah Greathouse kicks a 41-yard field goal with 27 seconds left to lift Penn The Bucknell players started the victory celebration exactly 73 seconds too early Saturday, and that one innocent party foul may have cost the Bison an upset of monumental proportions. A double unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for excessive celebration gave Penn an enormous field position advantage, setting up Jeremiah Greathouse's game-winning 41-yard field goal, and narrowly preserving The Streak at 24 games with an improbable 20-19 victory. In a game that both the Quakers (3-0) and Bison (2-2) tried to give away early and reclaim late, it all came down to some overzealous officials and the leg of a wide-eyed sophomore kicker with ice in his veins. After Bucknell wide receiver John Sakowski tiptoed just inside the end line for the go-ahead touchdown with 1 minute, 13 seconds remaining, dozens of Bison ripped off their helmets and piled on to the Franklin Field turf. The officiating crew, following the letter of NCAA law, dropped their little yellow handkerchiefs and cited Bucknell not only for the pile-up, but for taking off their helmets to do it. The penalties, assessed on the ensuing kickoff, backed the Bucknell special teams up to their own 10-yard line and changed the complexion of the game. "When I knew we had to kick off from the 10, I wanted to give our kids a chance to win," Bison coach Tom Gadd said, explaining his decision to go for a two-point conversion with a 19-17 lead. "If we could go up by four, we could change how they played that last chance. I didn't come here to tie the game. I came here to win the game." But Bucknell squandered the conversion opportunity when quarterback Jim Fox tripped taking the snap from center, and rolled out the red and blue carpet for a Penn comeback. To their credit, the Quakers wasted no time capitalizing on their good fortune. Mark Fabish, who had fumbled three return chances earlier in the day, managed to hang on to the kickoff and sprint 25 yards into the heart of the coverage before he was dropped at the Bison 45-yard line. Quarterback Mark DeRosa connected immediately with his favorite target -- an unusually quiet Miles Macik -- on a quick slant for 14 yards. The next two plays went nowhere, leaving the Quakers with a third and 10, and the daunting prospect of a 48-yard field goal. "I told Chuck, our offensive coordinator, 'We need five or six yards to make this comfortable,'" Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. "If we could get it down to that 40-to-43 range, he's got plenty of leg. He's done that very consistently in practice. Obviously, you don't know what's going to happen in a game situation, but it worked out according to script." Running back Aman Abye, who had already run for a career-high 165 yards and two touchdowns, took a DeRosa dump off and scampered another eight yards before stepping out of bounds with 27 ticks remaining on the clock. That brought out Greathouse, who had kicked exactly three career field goals and none from beyond 36 yards. But the snap was perfect, the hold was true, and Greathouse split the uprights with a full five yards to spare. "You can't think about anything else except what you're doing," Greathouse said. "That's how you miss kicks, and I've missed my share of kicks. I know what it takes. I was just concentrating on one thing and that was getting the ball up off the ground and letting it sail through. "I wasn't really coming into this game thinking it might come down to me. I thought this was going to be an offensive exhibition." So did just about everyone else outside of Lewisburg, Pa. But after breezing down to the Bucknell 9-yard line on its 11-play opening drive, the Penn offense fizzled. DeRosa, looking initially for Macik, who was double-covered in the corner, tried to force the ball to Fabish in the end zone. He instead found Bison free safety George Howanitz, who picked it off for a touchback. "That was about as good a drive as we had, and we didn't capitalize," Bagnoli said. "I think that took an awful lot of momentum away from us and gave them an awful lot of momentum." It was momentum the Quakers' defense, led by defensive end Tom McGarrity and linebacker Joey Allen, would be asked to reverse time and time again. McGarrity, who spent most of his afternoon abusing Bison right tackle Mariusz Misiec, set up Penn's first touchdown with a thunderous sack -- one of his four on the day -- that jarred the ball from Fox's grip for Tim Gage to recover. Two plays later, Abye slithered over the goal line on a draw play from six yards out to stake Penn to 7-0 lead. Abye, whose 36 carries marked a career-high at any level, emerged from the Quakers' running back trio with Penn's first 100-yard rushing game since a little guy named Stokes carried the ball. "We were searching for someone to jump start our running attack, and we finally got some kids healthy," Bagnoli said, noting that Dion Camp did not even dress with a groin pull. "Aman's a talented kid, but he hasn't been healthy all year." Meanwhile DeRosa, who struggled to throw for 100 yards on 10-for-23 passing, gift-wrapped Bucknell's first scoring opportunity with his second interception. Pressured by Bison Hunter Adams on a naked bootleg, DeRosa tried to loft the ball over the 6-foot-5 defensive end only to drop it into the hands of linebacker Willie Hill, who returned the ball all the way to the Penn 1-yard line. A goal-line plunge by fullback Jeff Bombich tied the score. The Quakers' special teams, not to be outdone by DeRosa, did their part to let Bucknell back in the game as well. A high snap that got away from punter Jeff Salvino set up a Bucknell field goal, making it 10-7. And in the third quarter, with Penn protecting a one-point lead, Fabish muffed a punt at his own 31-yard line. Only a McGarrity sack on third down kept Bucknell from putting points on the board. The Bison, however, were suffering from their own fits of generosity. Bucknell kick returner Milton Moore had the opening kickoff of the second half bounce off his chest and into the hands of Penn's Steve Gross at the Bucknell 24-yard line. Six plays later, Abye strolled 15 yards untouched to the end zone to give Penn a 14-13 lead. Fox, who doubles as Bucknell's punter, returned Salvino's earlier favor when he mishandled a knee-high snap and gave the Quakers possession in Bison territory. The miscue would turn into a Greathouse chip shot and a 17-13 Penn advantage. But Fox, who left the game once and was beaten around by Penn's front seven all day, took the Bison where their highly-touted running back Rich Lemon (63 yards on 25 carries) could not when he connected with Sakowski for the go-ahead score. "We've been down before and there's always the same feeling," Abye said. "This team kind of comes together, and we just kind of know. It's like a mystique, I guess. We feel we can't be beat."
(09/25/95 9:00am)
EASTON, Pa.-- After piling up 28 points in little more than a quarter and a half Saturday, Penn had no reason to worry about running up the score on Lafayette. Just running out the clock -- or running at all, for that matter -- would be problem enough. The Quakers committed four of their six turnovers after halftime, and struggled for only 65 yards of total offense in the final 30 minutes. In Penn's first three second-half possessions combined, the Quakers ran just six plays and nibbled a paltry two minutes and five seconds off the clock. Not exactly an ideal ball-control offense, to say the least. And the Quakers' running-back-by-committee -- minus absentee member Aman Abye, who sat out with a twisted ankle -- likewise went from decent to dismal as the game wore on. The two available musketeers, Dion Camp and Jasen Scott, gained 57 and 21 yards respectively, but combined for only 23 yards in the second half, including a third-quarter net total of minus-eight. "We wanted to run the ball, but Lafayette kept coming with six- and seven-man pressure," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said of the Leopards' second-half defense. "It's real difficult to run the ball with nine men in the box because you can't account for two of them. So I understand they wanted to get the ball back and make some plays, but it kind of put us in an awkward position." It was a position in which Lafayette would dare the Quakers to control the ball through the air, an improbable strategy since Penn had done exactly that early in the game. In the first half, the Quakers' passing attack exploded for 158 yards, as quarterback Mark DeRosa threw touchdowns to three different receivers -- remarkably none of whom were named Miles Macik. Wide receiver Mark Fabish, who did not catch a pass against Dartmouth, erupted for four first-half receptions, including a six-yard touchdown on a quick slant. Fellow wideout Felix Rouse, who always seems to draw single coverage, scored on his only reception of the game when DeRosa dropped a 28-yard bomb over his shoulder in the end zone. And tight end Matt Tonelli redeemed himself after dropping a sure touchdown last week by breaking open in the left corner of the end zone to be on the receiving end of a 15-yard strike. But the second half saw DeRosa play right into the Leopards' paws as he replaced the TNT with INTs -- three to be exact -- that were more the result of errors in execution than any adjustments in the Lafayette defensive scheme. On the second play of the half, DeRosa looked upfield after a play-action fake to see the irrepressible Rouse had beaten man coverage on a post pattern with no safety in sight. DeRosa, who had overthrown Rouse on a similar play in the first half, severely underthrew him this time, allowing Leopards cornerback Tadji Chattman time to recover and make a leaping interception. The Penn offense did improve slightly on its next possession, when it took Lafayette three whole plays to pick off DeRosa, this time on a pass intended for Fabish over the middle. "It was my fault in the second half," DeRosa said. "Both interceptions were on the same play. It's play action and you turn your back to the defense so you really don't know exactly what they're doing until you turn around. I was waiting a little too long on the Fabish ball and the guy was playing robber coverage. He just stepped in front of [Fabish]. "I force the ball in too much and I don't know why I do it. Maybe it's because I'm not a very good runner." That fact wouldn't have distinguished him from anyone else Saturday. In defense of DeRosa, nary a ball that left his hand in the second half hit the ground. It was just that three of his seven attempts were caught by Leopards' defensive backs. The third interception was a short pass drilled over the middle that hit Fabish a little too squarely in the hands and popped up to Lafayette safety Matt Cope. "I'll have to talk to him about that," DeRosa said, grinning. But you can bet Bagnoli won't be grinning in practice this week when the Quakers sit down and watch the films. "We're still looking for 60 minutes of consistency," Bagnoli said. "We showed some progress up until about halftime and then I think we took a step back." What he didn't say was that a better team than Lafayette might have seized the opportunity to take steps forward. And in a closer game, that would be an opportunity the Quakers could not afford to offer.
(09/18/95 9:00am)
Mark DeRosa is no mindreader, but sitting in the locker room at halftime, the junior quarterback had a pretty good idea of what the Quakers faithful was thinking. "I knew they couldn't be saying too many good things about me," DeRosa said. The truth was, outside of Miles Macik's seven first-half receptions, there wasn't much good to say. Penn's vaunted veteran offense managed only a Jeremiah Greathouse 21-yard field goal, and for 28 minutes appeared downright mystified by Dartmouth's new-look 4-3 defense. And even after the Quakers ripped off 46 yards in their two-minute drill before halftime, DeRosa dumped an interception into the hands of Dartmouth's Mark Abel at the 7 yard-line to bring the miserable half to a fitting end. That, combined with an earlier fumbled snap and a botched handoff in the backfield, marked DeRosa's third turnover of the quarter. Take away Macik's catches and he threw for negative yardage in the half. Add the fact that DeRosa was sacked twice, and doing the math, it's easy to see how Penn's offense went nowhere fast. "Dartmouth came out with a brand new defense in that 4-3," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said, noting that the Big Green had rolled its coverage to Macik's side of the field. "We had an idea that they might do it, but we didn't know for sure. They came out and blitzed much more than they've shown in past years." "They showed me some things I hadn't seen before," DeRosa added. Enter Macik, the all-everything receiver with goose-down hands and a flagpole frame. He had only accounted for more than two-thirds of the Quakers' offense in the first half, so obviously his teammates would expect him to take his game to another level in the second half. "At halftime I said to him, 'Miles, no one can stop you. If you think that, no one will,' wide receiver Mark Fabish said. "The bottom line is no one can can or no one will stop him. I'm going to be lucky to say that I played with Miles Macik." Sure enough, with the Big Green leading 12-6, it was Macik who curled into a soft spot over the middle and scampered 39 yards to the Dartmouth 9. Two plays later, after tight end Matt Tonelli dropped an easy touchdown on second down, Macik stepped inside of single coverage at the goal-line pylon for the go-ahead score. "He is the difference," said DeRosa, who threw more than half his passes in Macik's direction. "We needed a big play and that curl route to Miles turned out to be it. We have a lot of fine receivers, but he can step our team up a level." But Macik, who would tie his own school record with 12 receptions for 158 yards, was not finished yet. Nursing a one-point lead, the Quakers again isolated Macik one-on-one on a fade pattern to the corner of the end zone. The 6-foot-4 Macik easily won the jump ball for his second touchdown of the game, this one from 24 yards away. "We noticed when I was split wide all by myself, there would be more double coverage," Macik said. "So we put a receiver inside to open it up a little more for me." Dartmouth's Macik-phobia also opened up the Quakers' running game, and although Penn failed to find a chairman for its running-back-by-committee, the trio of Aman Abye, Jasen Scott and Dion Camp collectively gained a respectable 124 yards on 34 carries. Scott led the Quakers with 63 yards, mostly on well-designed draw plays. DeRosa, in the final tally, turned in a palatable 18-for-31, 190-yard performance, and, more importantly, showed his poise with a mistake-free second half. One notable absence from the Quakers' offense was Fabish, the deep threat, who had only one ball thrown his way all day and did not catch a pass. No matter -- Macik was there to pick him up just as he did everyone else. "He's definitely the best receiver in this league," DeRosa said. "I'm just glad he's on my team."
(09/14/95 9:00am)
Maybe it was the school-record 360 yards he amassed in last season's finale to rally Penn past Cornell. Or maybe it was the fact that he did it with torn ligaments in his thumb, a cast on his throwing hand, and an appointment for surgery right after the game. But by the end of the 1994 season, Mark DeRosa had made the jump from promising to premiere. And this year, the junior quarterback with gunpowder at his fingertips should only get better. "If you watch him play, you know he's a natural," preseason all-American wideout Miles Macik said. "You watch him drop back and the ball just jumps off his hand." And, more often than not, into the hands of his receivers. DeRosa completed better than 62 percent of his passes as a redshirt freshman last season, finishing with a passing efficiency rating of 135.6. "He's as accurate a thrower as I've been around," Quakers coach Al Bagnoli said. "He may not physically look it because he's slender, but Mark is a terrific athlete. He has great reflexes, great hand-eye coordination and tremendous accuracy." The head coach's biggest worry about his starting quarterback? "The baseball draft," Bagnoli deadpanned, referring to DeRosa's spring job as the starting shortstop on the Penn baseball team. But even if the Yankees were to pluck DeRosa from the lineup today, Penn would still have its most experienced backup in years waiting in the wings. Steve Teodecki, a 6-foot-1, 203 pound junior who appeared in five games last season and three as a freshman, gives the Quakers a dependable -- if less physically gifted -- arm off the bench. "Steve, with his experience, is a solid kid," Penn quarterbacks coach Larry Woods said. "If he had to go in on the second play of the Dartmouth game, we wouldn't change a thing we were doing offensively. We feel he can pick up right where Mark left off." Sophomore Tommy McCloud beat out classmate Joe Beggans in last Friday's Georgetown scrimmage for the third-string position, though, according to Woods, the competition was stiff. Freshman Damian Swank of Folsom, Calif., is currently the fifth quarterback. "We were really happy with the way all three of those guys played in the Georgetown game," Woods said. The key for the Quakers, however, will still be a healthy DeRosa. "It's as much Mark's offense as anything else," Woods said. "We've got as good a quarterback as there is in the league right now." Given the departure of star running back Terrance Stokes and a blossoming DeRosa, Bagnoli, who has been criticized for being too conservative, hinted the Quakers might open up the offense and air it out more often. "This is the first time we've had a quarterback with nine games' experience in our system," Bagnoli said. "We're going to have to open it up a little more. "Last year, a lot of the decisions were conservative, and they should have been, because we felt that good about our defense. This year, we may not be in that situation. I'm not going to say we have a bad defensive team?but we have to do a good job of understanding our personnel." If DeRosa has a weakness, it is his competitive nature. "Last year, [DeRosa] went out and it was just pure ability and talent that he had the success he did," Woods said. "Now it's a matter of making him aware of the big picture -- knowing when you're protected and when you've got to throw the ball away. He never just wants to throw the ball away." That may have accounted for DeRosa's rather mediocre touchdown to interception ratio (13/9) last season, a stat DeRosa indicated he would like to improve on this season. And Woods seems to have delivered the message about not trying to do too much. "I'm not going to try to do too much more than I did last year," DeRosa said, echoing his coaches. "We've got such a talented offense that I really shouldn't have to do that much more." Nevertheless, given a chance, the Carlstadt, N.J., native is willing and more than able to light up the West Philly airways. "I'm the kind of kid who likes to make big plays," DeRosa said. "If they call the play to hand off, that's fine, but I don't want to hand off. I want to throw."
(05/03/95 9:00am)
It took a juggled rotation, a few gifts from Columbia and a little luck, but the Penn baseball team found a way to clinch the Gehrig Division championship just the way it wanted to -- at home -- with a doubleheader sweep over the Lions Saturday. Columbia right fielder Mike Shibilo misplayed two fly balls into doubles and reliever Frank Telesca walked in the game-winning run as the Quakers rallied for three runs in the bottom of the seventh to steal the opener, 4-3. In the nightcap, Penn's floundering offense managed to turn two Lions' errors into three unearned runs. And that was all staff ace Ed Haughey needed. The Ivy League strikeout king tossed a four-hit shutout to give the Quakers a 3-0 victory and the division crown. Penn's doubleheader against the Lions scheduled for Sunday in New York was rained out and canceled. Next weekend the Quakers are in New Haven, Conn., for a best-of-three series against Rolfe Division-winner Yale for the Ivy League championship. "To be honest, we didn't play great ball Saturday," said righthander Dan Galles, who battled through four Penn errors and a shaky first inning to win the first game. "They make a couple of mistakes that helped us out a lot, and we were able to take advantage of them." As usual, it also came down to the right arms of Galles and Haughey, and with a division title on the line, the Quakers (21-18, 13-5 Ivy League) weren't pulling any punches. Penn coach Bob Seddon juggled Penn's normal rotation to make sure his best one-two punch would take the mound in front the Quakers faithful at Bower Field. "That was the plan all along," Seddon said. "We won the division, and we won it with our pitching. That's the way we've done it all year." Haughey (8-1) was his consistently brilliant self, allowing a notoriously potent Lions offense to put only four runners in scoring position all afternoon. The only real threat he faced was in the seventh, when Columbia (15-23-1, 9-9) loaded the bases with nobody out on a leadoff double, a base on balls and a laced single to center. But Haughey induced Jamie Lake to fly out to shallow center, and escaped the inning unscathed when shortstop Mark DeRosa made a fine play to his left to begin an inning-ending double play. Lions starter Chris Vogel was nearly as good as Haughey through the first five innings. The freshman yielded only a lone single to Derek Nemeth before the wheels came off in the sixth. With one out, Armen Simonian walked and advanced to third on Mike Shannon's solid single to right. A throwing error on a pickoff play allowed Simonian to trot home for the eventual winning run. After an error and another free pass loaded the bases, Vogel walked Nemeth to plate an insurance run. "When you're on the road and it gets in the late innings, there's a lot of pressure," Seddon said. "That's the difference. They just cracked." At least Vogel beat himself. In the seventh inning of the opener, Columbia's 6-foot-7 righthander Steve Ceterko could only watch helplessly as his teammate, Shibilo, stumbled around right field and almost singlehandedly erased a 3-1 lead. When Allen Fischer popped up to right to lead off the inning, Shibilo set up camp about 10 feet beyond where the ball actually landed. Fischer ended up at second base. Nemeth then greeted Shibilo with what should have been a routine fly ball down the right field line, but with Shibilo's help became another double. A frustrated Ceterko then botched a pick-off throw and threw two balls to pinch-hitter Jeremy Milken to bring Telesca loping in out of the bullpen. The reliever gave Milken a free pass and then gave up consecutive singles to Tim Henwood and Simonian. After Mike Shannon struck out, Michael Green walked on five pitches to force in the winning run.
(04/17/95 9:00am)
The Quakers' slumbering bats awoke with thunder as the Penn baseball team snapped its five-game losing streak by crushing Cornell in a pair of doubleheaders this past weekend. Mike Shannon solidified his claim as the Ivy League's best all-around player with a monster weekend in all facets of the game. Shannon bludgeoned the Big Red pitching staff, going 11 for 15 with two doubles and a home run on the weekend. "They wanted no part of him," Penn coach Bob Seddon said. "In every game, Shannon was the guy who jump-started us on offense." The junior righthander also came within six outs of bringing the weekend of Red and Blue fireworks to a stunning climax when he carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning of yesterday's nightcap. After a leadoff single and a three-run pinch homer spoiled the festivities, Shannon cruised to a 12-4 victory. The Quakers won yesterday's first game, 7-3, behind staff ace Ed Haughey. Saturday Penn rallied for five late runs to capture the opener, 6-1, and then buried Cornell by a 9-2 count in the second game. The Quakers have won seven of the last eight meetings between the two teams. "We just blew Cornell away," said Seddon, who watched his team vault into first place in the Gehrig Division. "It takes three things to be successful and this weekend we got them all -- we played good defense, got great pitching, and we hit the ball pretty well. Shannon was unbelievable." As late as Saturday morning, Shannon was doubtful. A sprained wrist he suffered sliding into second base against Lehigh threatened to keep him out of the lineup altogether. But Penn got some help from Mother Nature when a Friday downpour pushed the schedule back a day, and gave Shannon and the Quakers' rotation an extra day of rest. "We didn't say anything publicly, but we weren't sure whether Mike would be able to play at all," Seddon said. "Yesterday, we didn't know until game time if he would pitch. That extra day made a big difference." After suffering through a two-week drought at the plate, the Quakers (15-15, 8-4 Ivy League) exploded for 52 hits, and outscored the Big Red (9-14, 5-7) by a 34-10 margin. And after exhibiting some atrocious glovework the past couple weeks, Penn rediscovered its leather, committing only four errors against Cornell. Seddon attributed the improvement in part to moving Derek Nemeth to the hot corner. "We were defensively a lot better," Seddon said. "Derek fielded every chance he had over at third and did a great job for us all weekend." But as usual it was the rotation that was instrumental in carrying the Quakers through the weekend. The Penn pitchers combined to throw four complete games in a weekend for the first time since 1990. Senior righthander Dan Galles outdueled Big Red ace Tim Ryan with what Seddon called "his normal gutsy performance" in the critical Saturday opener. Galles (3-3) scattered five hits and allowed only an unearned run through seven innings. Ryan was nearly as good, holding the Quakers to a lone run before Penn blew the game open with a run in the sixth and four more in the seventh, highlighted by Tim Henwood's two-run single. "Winning that first game set the tone for the weekend," Seddon said. "When we pulled out that first game, it seemed to deflate Cornell. They definitely didn't have a lot of spunk when they got behind. We got ahead of them early, and didn't give them a chance to get in the game." The Quakers applied the strategy to perfection in the second game Saturday, as they pounded out seven runs in the first two innings. Henwood went a perfect 3 for 3 while Shannon collected four hits. Senior righthander Lance Berger (2-2) surrendered two runs on six hits while waltzing through a demoralized Big Red lineup. Haughey (6-1), the Ivy League leader in victories, collected yet another in unspectacular but effective fashion in the first game yesterday. Catcher Rick Burt and Shannon each went 2 for 3, and Shannon set the tone for the day with a towering home run in the first inning. The Big Red, for their part, had enough of Shannon for one weekend and proceeded to bean him three times after the dinger. It would make little difference. Shortstop Mark DeRosa hammered out four hits and drove in four runs in the second game, while Shannon still managed to go 3 for 3 in between beanings and pitching hitless innings. "I had no idea," Shannon (2-1) said of his brush with the no-no. "No one came up and said anything to me to jinx me. The same thing happened against Cornell last year. I had a no-hitter going into the sixth." The Quakers, meanwhile, have thrust themselves back into the thick of the Ancient Eight race, and caught a glimpse of what they are capable of doing every weekend. "They've been sporadic for much of the season," Seddon said. "But when they put it all together, they can be awesome."
(04/03/95 9:00am)
Penn pitching coach Bill Wagner was oozing with confidence after the Quakers took three out of four from Harvard and Dartmouth to open the Ivy League season. And with good reason. For if there was still any question about who has the best all-around pitching staff in the Ancient Eight this season, it was erased by the Penn rotation's four solid outings this weekend. "Without a doubt we have the best pitching staff in the league," Penn senior righthander Dan Galles said. "We have experience in our three senior starters and a draftable junior. It definitely gives us an advantage. We believe we can and should win every game." Or at least give them a chance to win every game -- which is exactly what the Quakers' staff did against the Crimson and Big Green. Galles and junior Mike Shannon each turned in sterling performances yesterday as Penn swept a doubleheader from Dartmouth. Shannon scattered five hits en route to a 2-0 shutout while lowering his team-leading 2.25 ERA. "Mike is one of the best pitchers on the East Coast," Penn senior catcher Rick Burt said of the hard-throwing righthander. "He throws hard. He throws strikes. There's nothing more you can say about Mike other than he's a better pitcher than they are hitters." Before Galles took the mound for the first game of yesterday afternoon's twin bill, the Quakers had not beaten the Big Green since 1990. In Wagner's mind, there was no one better to snap the Quakers' futility streak than the one they call Bulldog. "I wanted Galles to pitch the first game against Dartmouth," Wagner said. "It was somewhat of a revenge thing. They had beaten us the last six or seven times in a row. It was time to shut them down." Galles may have had a bit of a personal score to settle with Dartmouth as well. "Dan wanted to beat them real bad," Burt said. "Last year they hit Dan pretty hard. He gave up nine or 10 runs, and he takes that stuff kind of personally." Spotted to an early six-run lead, the Quakers' team captain cruised all day, throwing strikes early in the count and relying on a wicked changeup to finish off the Big Green hitters. Galles racked up eight strikeouts while allowing only four hits en route to an easy 9-1 victory. If Shannon and Galles were exceptional, senior righthander and staff ace Ed Haughey merely did what he always does in Saturday's opener against Harvard. "All he does is win games," Burt said. "It's always his slider. He wants to throw it every time and I want to call it every time. It's a nasty pitch. People just can't hit it." Haughey came within one pitch of tossing a shutout of his own before Brian Ralph deposited a 3-and-2 slider over the right field fence and forced Haughey to settle for 4-2 complete-game victory. "He made one bad pitch and the kid hit a home run," Wagner said. "Other than that, he shut them down. I wanted the kids to get off to a win in the first game, and Haughey was the kid." Even senior righthander Lance Berger, who was pitching on three days' rest and obviously didn't have his best stuff, pitched well enough that he could have won Saturday's nightcap. "He didn't have a lot of control, but he battled," Burt said of Berger, who yielded only four runs through seven innings in Penn's 7-5 extra inning loss. "He put us in a position to win the game. He did his job, even if it wasn't one of his better outings. You can't ask for a lot more than that." Thus far in this young season, Penn hasn't gotten anything less.
(03/28/95 10:00am)
While accounting has been known to be a thorn in the side of many a Wharton student, rarely does it have the same effect on the Penn baseball team. But when the Quakers travel to West Chester today to lock horns with the Rams at 3:30 p.m., they will feel the strain of the subject firsthand. Sophomore shortstop Mark DeRosa will be back on campus taking an accounting exam. "If it were a weekend game it might be different," Penn coach Bob Seddon said of DeRosa's conflict. "But for a midweek game it isn't worth fighting with a professor about it." The break will also give DeRosa a chance to rest the ailing shoulder that has relegated him to designated hitting duty since the Quakers' spring break trip to Florida. "We'll see how he is Wednesday," Seddon said. "He'll have four days to get healthy for the start of the Ivy League this weekend." Seddon meanwhile will be fiddling with a different subject -- chemistry. "We're going to experiment a little bit against West Chester," Seddon said. "We're trying to get the best nine players on the field without disrupting our defense." Junior catcher Rick Burt, who returned from a strained hamstring just last weekend against La Salle, will only see mop-up duty against West Chester as freshman David Corleto opens the game behind the plate. Freshman Joe Carlon will fill in at shortstop. But the most surprising face for the Quakers (6-8) will be in left field, where freshman Armen Simonian is slated to start. Simonian, listed as a pitcher in the media guide, has seen most of his action on the mound this year -- although he is 4 for 8 with two doubles at the plate this season. "He doesn't even know he's going to start," Seddon said. "But he's been playing real well lately and he deserves it." Seddon can afford to take certain experimental liberties against the Rams (2-7), who are extremely young and in the midst of a transition period. "In 13 years of coaching, this is the first time I ever went into a season without having any expectations," said West Chester coach Jack Hopkins, who only took over the program in December. "I didn't get a chance to see the guys on the baseball field until their first game. We've just been working to get the lineup and rotation set, and just get a little more comfortable." If the Rams have a strength, it's in their bats -- which should give Penn senior righthander Lance Berger (0-2, 2.70 ERA) a chance to work four or five quality innings before the Quakers open their Ivy League season this weekend against Harvard and Dartmouth. "We need to get Lance some work," Seddon said. "He pitched a real strong game against Rollins a couple weeks ago, but was a little wild in relief." "Some of our guys were a little disappointed after the second La Salle game over the weekend [which Penn lost 4-0]," Seddon continued. "They felt they might have gotten a little overconfident. I would hope they put together a good effort today." By all accounts, that is exactly what should happen.
(03/15/95 10:00am)
The 1979 Quakers knocked off Iona, North Carolina, Syracuse and St. John's en route to the 1979 Final Four in Salt Lake City and a date with Magic Johnson and Michigan State. It is the story of a hard-luck kid from South Bronx whose star shone brightest just when the eyes of the nation were watching. It is the story of a coach with the naive optimism to ask for the improbable from his players -- and get it. It is the story of defying odds and expectations. It is the story of secrets, and the story of Magic. · No one can really be sure how serious second-year Penn coach Bob Weinhauer was when he wrote a letter to each of his players just before the 1978-79 season. The letter outlined five goals Weinhauer had set for his senior-laden team, all of them reasonably attainable except the fifth and final goal. That called for the Quakers to earn a trip to Salt Lake City and the 1979 Final Four -- a feat no team in Penn history had ever accomplished. "I was young, enthusiastic and it was my second year as a college head coach," Weinhauer said. "I tried to be the eternal optimist to the players, but in my own head I was the worst pessimist. But I told the team that when you get to the NCAA playoffs, anybody can win the thing." Weinhauer's goal was not all that far-fetched. The year before, the Quakers had advanced to the Sweet Sixteen and only fallen to eventual runner-up Duke, 84-80, when they blew an eight-point lead in the final minutes. "That game [against Duke] kind of opened our eyes and showed us we were that close," said Tony Price, who averaged 19.8 points per game for Penn in the 1979 season. "We never really talked about how far we could go. We just felt we didn't get a whole lot of respect because we were from the Ivy League." Seeded ninth in the 10-team Eastern Regional bracket in 1979, Penn was the official underdog in every game it played in the tournament that year. Only the handicappers in Las Vegas gave the Quakers any credit, posting them as slight favorites in the opening round against Iona. "When the seedings came out, we laughed about it," said Price, the Eastern Regionals' Most Valuable Player in 1979. "I don't think [the seeding committee] cared for us that much. There was talk about taking away the Ivy League's invitation, but that kind of quieted down after that year." · The Iona game pitted Weinhauer against a fiery, young Jim Valvano, as well as the Quakers' front line against future NBA center Jeff Ruland in what was widely considered an empty battle for the honor of bowing out to top-seeded and No. 3 North Carolina in the second round. Penn opened its tournament run by dancing circles around the Gaels and methodically building a 14-point second-half lead. Suddenly, the Quakers seemed to lose their rhythm. Iona rallied behind Ruland and closed the gap to 59-58 with 6 minutes, 42 seconds remaining. "You know what happened to us?" forward Tim Smith said after the game. "We looked up at the scoreboard in the second half and said, 'Hey, we're 14 points ahead, let's go for the kill.' " Penn proved its poise by hanging on for a 73-69 victory behind Price's 15 points and 12 rebounds and freshman reserve Tom Liefsen's clutch free throw shooting. "My assistants told me we should foul Leifsen," Valvano said after Leifsen broke the Gaels' backs by converting two one-and-ones down the stretch. "They said he shoots 42 percent. Well, maybe he shoots 42 percent in Pennsylvania, but he's a helluva free throw shooter in North Carolina." The Quakers now had themselves a helluva challenge in North Carolina. But then, they also had a secret. According to Penn lore, it was assistant coach Bob Staak who shared the secret with the Quakers players during stretching exercises that fateful Sunday morning in Raleigh, N.C. "Nobody knows it," Staak told them. "But we're going to beat North Carolina." Nobody could have been expected to know it. The Tar Heels, led by Mike O'Koren, Al Wood and Dudley Bradley, had won eight of their last nine entering the tourney. And no ACC school from North Carolina had lost an NCAA Tournament game in its home state in 18 years. With Price and Smith both nursing back injuries, the Quakers' prospects appeared grim. But sharp execution and an airtight zone kept Penn within striking distance. With the Quakers trailing 44-38, Price took over the game. The South Bronx native scored the Quakers' next nine points, while Penn senior center Matt White -- whom UNC coach Dean Smith later called "the most underrated player on the floor" -- assumed command of the paint. And when junior point guard Booney Salters sunk the front end of one-and-one to secure the 72-71 upset, all of Carolina was blue. Princeton coach Pete Carril, whose Tigers had suffered two one-point overtime losses to Penn earlier that season, was quick to celebrate the Ivy League coup. "That was no fluke," Carril said. "If Penn played them again, they would beat them again." · Most media figures across the nation stumbled over one another to label Penn a Cinderella team, but the victory over the Tar Heels had opened some eyes. "Who are we kidding?" Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said before his Eastern regional semifinal game against the Quakers. "Penn is not an Ivy League team. Penn's a Big 5 team, an Eastern team. They don't belong in the Ivy League because they are too good for that league." What Boeheim didn't know then was the Quakers would be too good -- and, surprisingly, too fast -- for the No. 8 Orangemen as well. Syracuse, anchored by 6-foot-11 shot blocker Roosevelt Bouie, was known to be notoriously partial to the up-tempo game. "I don't think Penn will try to run with us," Boeheim said in a pregame press conference. "No team in the East has, and I don't think Penn will try it." The same time the next day, Boeheim was singing a different tune. "They outplayed us and outhustled us in the first half," Boeheim said after watching the Quakers oust his Orangemen, 84-76. "They beat us up the court after 29 teams couldn't do it." Price once again led the assault with 20 points, seven rebounds and six assists, while Smith chipped in 18. "Price is the best forward we've seen all year," an awed Boeheim said. "He absolutely controlled the game." One game away from their goal, the Quakers caught a break when they drew St. John's, an underdog in its own right, in the regional final. The Redmen turned the game into a walk-a-thon from the opening tip, but a dazzling display of long-range bombs from Smith and Salters early in the second half kept the Quakers ahead by a slim margin. St. John's, fresh from last-second upsets over Duke and Rutgers, just wanted to give itself a chance to win, and that's exactly what the Redmen did when they fouled Salters with 15 seconds remaining and the score knotted at 62. But Booney was ice from the line, and when freshman Vincent Ross intercepted a long baseball pass, the Quakers had fulfilled the destiny Weinhauer had spelled out for them months before. · Respect has always been accorded grudgingly to the Penn basketball program, but when the Quakers arrived in Salt Lake City for the 1979 Final Four, Weinhauer thought they had finally earned themselves a place in the national spotlight. He was wrong. According to most experts, Penn's clock had been scheduled to strike midnight two weeks before against North Carolina. Now, after an improbable run through the Eastern Regionals, the upstarts from the Ancient Eight were rubbing elbows with likes of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. "They were all nice and polite," Weinhauer said of the media that Final Four weekend, "all the time thinking we didn't belong there." Carril had a more candid explanation. "They're sorry to see Penn in there," Carril said. "They made a lot of predictions and they didn't come true, so to look good, they're saying those things." Much has been made of the day the Quakers met Magic Johnson, but the one thing on which everyone agrees is it certainly didn't help Penn in its quest for national respect. Philadelphia Inquirer sports writer Chuck Newman called it "the best-advertised public execution in collegiate basketball history." Weinhauer tried to make sense of it, but he could not. "We were getting exactly the type of shots we wanted," he said afterward. "Only we weren't hitting them. The game plan went exactly the way we planned, and it just didn't work." The plain fact was Michigan State dominated the Quakers in every phase of the game to earn one of the most lopsided victories in NCAA Final Four history. Led by Johnson's 29 points, the Spartans ran out to a 32-6 lead and were never challenged on the way to a 101-67 victory. Penn went on to lose the consolation game to DePaul, 96-93 in overtime, but the dream had died two days earlier. · Back on the West Philly campus, rabid Quakers fans embraced their conquered heroes. They welcomed back Price, who outshot Johnson and Larry Bird to lead the tournament in scoring with 142 points. They welcomed back a special team with a chemistry so fine-tuned that five of its members would rank in Penn's top 11 in career assists upon graduation. The Quakers' Final Four appearance was lauded throughout the city as the resurrection of Big 5 basketball. "This will certainly benefit Penn," Temple coach Don Casey said of the Quakers' success. "This is Penn's success. Nobody else's. But it is something we [the Big 5] can utilize in recruiting." But more than anything, the Quakers' success was enjoyed by the students. A week earlier, 8,000 fans had marched through campus and gathered in Franklin Field for a send-off to Salt Lake City. Weinhauer, Eastern Basketball's 1979 coach of the year, stepped forward and captured the sentiment Penn has spent the last 16 years trying to resurrect. "This has to be," he said to the crowd, "right now, one of the greatest feelings that we've ever had as a team, and I hope that you've ever had as a person. This feeling of togetherness that we have on campus right now -- we should never let go of it."
(03/14/95 10:00am)
Quakers sweep Brown, Yale at emotional Palestra The tears rolling down Jerome Allen's face after the game said more about last Saturday night than his whispery voice ever could have. It was not really a time for words anyway. Earlier in the evening, the Penn seniors had stood together at center court in the Palestra one final time before their final game in the historic arena. Even as 6,400 faithful fans rose to acknowledge them in a 10-minute standing ovation, somehow there was a sense it was not enough. It could not be. There was simply no way a pregame ceremony could capture the full spectrum of emotions -- from sadness to elation to pride -- played out in the Palestra over the previous four years. But now, with the Quakers' 82-57 victory over Yale finally in the books, the feelings of Allen and his teammates came pouring out. "I tried to talk myself into the fact that this wasn't the last game for these five kids, even though it was their last home game," said Penn coach Fran Dunphy, his own eyes welling up. "I needed it for my own sanity." For guard Matt Maloney, who made the most of his final night at the Palestra with a team-high 19 points against the Elis, the finality of it all had struck him earlier in the day. "It started to hit me a little bit when I was walking in the front door of the Palestra, and [senior guard] Scott [Kegler] brought up that it was the last time we would walk through those doors to play a game," said Maloney, who buried five three-pointers on the night. "And then when I walked into the locker room, I was thinking of the all the times I've had in this building." Maloney only needed to look back 24 hours to recall the day the Quakers captured their third consecutive Ivy League championship. Friday night Penn overwhelmed an injury-riddled Brown team, 85-55, to secure the automatic bid to the 1995 NCAA Tournament. But even as the Penn seniors basked in the nostalgia of their final Ivy weekend, there was an underlying sense of indifference among the Quakers, as though they were still waiting for some kind of vindication another Ancient Eight title simply could not provide. "I get the feeling the seniors think there is still some unfinished business," Dunphy said. "And they would like to finish this thing out." "To be honest, if we didn't win it this year, we would have been very disappointed," Kegler said. "I think the championship was ours for the winning and we went out and got it. The next step is going 14-0, and then to go on to the tournament and make some noise. That's really our end goal -- to see how far we can go." Neither the Bears, with star guards Eric Blackiston and Brian Lloyd sidelined with injuries, nor the Elis, whose uniforms and their athleticism are straight out of Hoosiers, gave the Quakers (21-5, 13-0 Ivy League) much of a challenge. Brown (13-12, 8-5) simply did not have the firepower to match Penn for 40 minutes. The next night, the Quakers' blistering 9-of-13 shooting from behind the arc in the first half against Yale (9-17, 5-9) eliminated all doubt about the outcome. "There's a point," Maloney said, "where you say we almost want to go out [in Ivy League games] and execute and work on the things we do in practice to prepare ourselves for the tournament. But then at the same time, we know we have to win these games to get to the tournament." More than anything, the ceremonial weekend was for the Quakers faithful who postponed their spring break vacations to witness the end of an era in Penn basketball and pay tribute to the class that brought a winning tradition back to the Palestra. It was a weekend for them to catch a final glimpse of Allen convulsing and exploding past his defender with a stutter step that has broken down the laws of physics nearly as often as it has broken down opposing defenses. Or to hang on to the image of Maloney, the portrait of confidence, sinking trey after trey while hundreds of Red and Blue fans raise their arms in unison in the background. Or Kegler, leaning in and releasing just over an outstretched hand as he toes the arc. It was a weekend to see Eric Moore muscle his way across the Palestra's blood-red lane and drop in his little hook one final time. Or to see Shawn Trice disorient his defender with a lightning spin move and drive past a cringing contingent of Red and Blue cheerleaders along the baseline. By season's end, the Penn seniors intend to leave their fans with something more substantial. "We definitely have it in the back of our minds that we want to go undefeated three years in a row," Maloney said. "That would be a great feat, but it is more of a great feat for our fans than for us right now because we know we still have a job to do." Allen agreed. "It isn't over yet," the two-time Ivy League Player of the Year said. "Not for myself, not for Shawn, not for Eric, not for Matt, not for Scott. Not for any of us."
(02/27/95 10:00am)
Amidst the roses and hugs being lavished upon the Penn women's basketball team's four seniors in pregame ceremonies Saturday, Palestra public address announcer John McAdam nearly forgot to introduce Erica McCauley. Not that anyone should blame him. Measuring barely 5-foot-3 from the soles of her shoes to the top of her fiery-red ponytail, Penn's starting point guard has a way of getting lost in the shuffle. Though often overshadowed on the court by the sheer size of her opponents, and off the court by the accolades of her elder teammates, McCauley has become the Quakers' most consistent player since returning from a broken hand over winter break. "She made a great comeback from the hand injury," Penn coach Julie Soriero said. "She's playing with a lot more confidence. She feels like she's our floor leader. She knows who to look for and she does a real nice job getting us on track." Since her size physically limits what she can do on both ends of the court, McCauley has developed into the consummate role player and three-point specialist at the collegiate level, after starring at Mount Hebron High in Maryland. And while seniors Shelly Bowers, Natasha Rezek and Katina Banks leave the biggest marks on the stat sheet, it is ironically the young sophomore who provides the often erratic Quakers with a stabilizing presence. "I've gotten a lot of support from all the seniors," McCauley said. "They know that even though they are the captains, as the point guard, I'm the floor leader." Saturday's 78-64 victory over Cornell was typical of a McCauley evening. In an ugly first half during which Bowers could not find the handle (six turnovers), and Banks could not find the basket (2 of 11 from the field), it was McCauley who rose to the occasion. The Ivy League's No. 4 three-point shooter knocked down a trio of treys to stake the Quakers to a 28-26 halftime lead. When Bowers, Banks, and Rezek came alive to spark an early second-half run, McCauley faded from the limelight. She contented herself with breaking the Big Red press and feeding the ball inside. "Shelly Bowers had a huge night [Friday], and Katina is known as a driving threat," said McCauley, who finished with 14 points. "So when people key on them, I'm left open. I'm trying not to force things as much and wait for the shots as they come." But McCauley's most significant contribution may have come on the defensive end against Cornell sharpshooter Mary LaMacchia. After LaMacchia burned the Quakers for 30 points up in Ithaca, N.Y., two weeks ago, Soriero decided to let McCauley shadow LaMacchia this time around and assign Bowers to Kacee English, the Big Red's 5-3 point guard. Soriero's reasoning was solid. Bowers' height would make it difficult for English to get the ball to LaMacchia, while trying to run McCauley off staggered screens would be like trying to spear a mosquito with a javelin. The strategy worked as McCauley's pestering presence frustrated LaMacchia into only two points on 1-of-9 shooting. "I just tried to stay close to LaMacchia," she said with a modest grin. As usual, McCauley's line of two rebounds, one assist, and two turnovers failed to tell the story. In fact, the most compelling sign of McCauley's impact came when she was sitting on the bench. During her three-minute breather in the first half, the Quakers squandered three of five possessions as Bowers and freshman Colleen Kelly took turns throwing the ball away against the Big Red press. Soriero didn't waste any time getting McCauley back in the game. "Last year I was timid about taking control on the floor," McCauley said. "Now I feel a lot more comfortable."
(02/20/95 10:00am)
The prospect of upsetting the top two teams in the Ivy League on their home floors was not daunting enough. Nor was the knowledge a loss in either game would cost the Quakers any chance at an NCAA tournament berth. The Penn women's basketball team had to make its weekend journey through New England really interesting and spot Dartmouth and Harvard double-digit leads as well. Incredibly, the Quakers were almost up to the challenge. They battled all the way back from an 18-point deficit Friday against the league-leading Big Green, only to see the dreams of an entire season slip away, 64-59, in the final moments. In a cruel twist of fate, Penn saw the agony replayed the next night in an 88-83 loss to Harvard. "It was pretty discouraging," senior guard Shelly Bowers said of the loss at Dartmouth. "From the tip, we were down big. We dug ourselves out of the hole, but it was too much." The Big Green (11-9, 7-1 Ivy League) ran off the first 10 points of the game and sprinted out to a 30-12 lead with seven minutes remaining in the first half. But pushed to the edge of elimination, the Quakers (8-14, 5-5) gambled defensively with a halfcourt zone trap and began to gnaw away at the Dartmouth lead behind seniors Natasha Rezek and Katina Banks. Rezek and Banks combined to score 24 of Penn's next 34 points to give the Quakers their only lead of the game at 46-45. "Our defense really brought us back," Banks said. "Obviously, that's been our strength all season. We just haven't always played it consistently for a full 40 minutes. We went to a 1-2-1-1 zone trap, which allowed us to make some big plays and pick off a lot of passes. It was very successful for us in both games." In the end, there weren't enough miracles. Dartmouth rattled off the next eight points and turned the final three minutes into a free throw clinic. The Big Green was led by Jen Stamp's 18 points. Star forward Bari Porter added 11 points and 8 rebounds. Banks scored a career-high 24 points for Penn, including four treys, while Rezek finished with 16 points and 12 boards. "We couldn't turn the corner," Penn coach Julie Soriero said. "You come back from that many points down, and it's real hard to take that next step and build an eight- or 10-point lead. We just didn't have enough left." The Harvard game followed an eerily similar script, though against the Crimson (15-6, 7-2), the Quakers managed to postpone their defensive lapse until the second half. Nursing a 46-41 lead early in the final period, Harvard tallied 13 unanswered points during a three-and-a-half minute stretch, including six from star center Tammy Butler. This time, however, Soriero turned to her bench and seldom-used sophomore guard Patti Loyack to quell the Crimson tide. Loyack responded immediately with a three-pointer and a layup for five of her career-high nine points. "Patti came in and gave us exactly the spark we needed," Banks said. "She hit a huge three-pointer and made some big stops on the defensive end." Penn continued to chip away at the lead, mostly on the inside-outside combination of Rezek (career-high 23 points, 13 rebounds) and Bowers (19 points, 7 assists). A layup by senior reserve forward Shelly Dieterle capped the Quakers' comeback, giving them an 79-78 lead with 2 minutes, 23 seconds remaining. "It was just teamwork that brought us back," Loyack said. "We didn't let up, and we started to do the little things well. We played solid defense and hit some good shots. But defense was the key. Our defense leads to our offense." But for the second time in as many nights, it didn't lead them to victory. Harvard ripped off ten points in the final 1:54, including 4 of 5 from the charity stripe. Rezek had a chance to tie with 54 seconds remaining, but she could not connect on a free throw to complete a three-point play. With the losses, Penn has moved from a must-win to a no-win situation.
(02/15/95 10:00am)
The Penn darkhorse came up lame with a costly loss to Cornell Friday night, all but eliminating the Quakers from the open race for the Ivy League championship. The Harvard women's basketball team currently sits atop the Ancient Eight with a 6-1 record, followed by Dartmouth at 5-2. Penn and Princeton are coupled in third at 5-3 with six games left to play. Can the Quakers close the gap? Probably not. An 11-3 record wins the Ivies. Given the league parity, 10-4 might do it. Penn needs to win its final six games -- not likely since the school record for consecutive victories is five -- to maintain a legitimate shot at an Ancient Eight title. "The loss to Cornell was a setback," Penn coach Julie Soriero said. "It put us in a position where we can't stumble. Our destiny is in our own hands." It will be all the more difficult with four of those final six games on the road, including a nasty little weekend journey through Hanover, N.H., and Cambridge, Mass. Soriero was guardedly optimistic about her team's chances. "We're going to be a different team this weekend against Harvard and Dartmouth. I think we're going to be a little bit more prepared and a little bit more confident." · The mysterious curse of the Empire State plagued the Quakers once again last weekend. During Soriero's tenure, it has become a tradition for Penn to self-destruct on the annual trip to the Big Apple and Ithaca, and this year was no exception. The Quakers did, however, shun tradition in some sense, since it has usually been Columbia rather than Cornell that has proven to be Penn's nemesis. Coming into the weekend, the Quakers had never beaten Columbia on the road with Soriero pacing the sidelines, though they had enjoyed unprecedented success against the Big Red with a 28-3 advantage in the series. But while Penn's 69-59 victory Saturday over the winless Lions snapped the futility streak, it was Cornell that broke the Quakers' five-game winning streak with a 67-45 whipping Friday. "I don't know what it is about that trip," Soriero said. "It's a very demanding trip and it takes a real sense of mental toughness, which maybe with some of the younger players we didn't have." Penn didn't have any defense against the Big Red either -- a problem Soriero called a major reason for the loss, and one the Quakers are focusing on in practice this week. Cornell guard Mary LaMacchia ran wild on the Penn defense, racking up 30 points on 6-of-10 shooting from three-point range. But the Columbia game may have been even more disturbing. The Penn defense allowed the 0-20 Lions to shoot 57 percent from the field. "We really got away from that good, solid defense," Soriero said. "I think our defense generates our offense and when we don't have that aggressive defense, our offense gets sloppy. That's what we're trying to get back on track." · Three early decision applicants will wear the Red and Blue next season, adding some size to the Penn lineup. The most intriguing prospect is Carrie Fleck, a 6-foot-4 center from State College High School who may resurrect memories of Katarina Poulsen, the Quakers' all-Ivy center of a year ago. Soriero said Fleck "has good hands and a soft touch around the basket," though she will need to work on her footwork to adjust to the college game. Penn's other recruits are Megan Evans, a 6-0 small forward from Penn Charter in Philly, and Sue Van Stone, a 5-10 shooting guard from Mt. St. Joseph's Academy. · Sophomore power forward Deana Lewis, who sprained her right ankle against Cornell Friday and sat out the Columbia game Saturday, is practicing without pain and will be in the lineup this weekend at Harvard and Dartmouth.
(02/15/95 10:00am)
The Penn darkhorse came up lame with a costly loss to Cornell Friday night, all but eliminating the Quakers from the open race for the Ivy League championship. The Harvard women's basketball team currently sits atop the Ancient Eight with a 6-1 record, followed by Dartmouth at 5-2. Penn and Princeton are coupled in third at 5-3 with six games left to play. Can the Quakers close the gap? Probably not. An 11-3 record wins the Ivies. Given the league parity, 10-4 might do it. Penn needs to win its final six games -- not likely since the school record for consecutive victories is five -- to maintain a legitimate shot at an Ancient Eight title. "The loss to Cornell was a setback," Penn coach Julie Soriero said. "It put us in a position where we can't stumble. Our destiny is in our own hands." It will be all the more difficult with four of those final six games on the road, including a nasty little weekend journey through Hanover, N.H., and Cambridge, Mass. Soriero was guardedly optimistic about her team's chances. "We're going to be a different team this weekend against Harvard and Dartmouth. I think we're going to be a little bit more prepared and a little bit more confident." · The mysterious curse of the Empire State plagued the Quakers once again last weekend. During Soriero's tenure, it has become a tradition for Penn to self-destruct on the annual trip to the Big Apple and Ithaca, and this year was no exception. The Quakers did, however, shun tradition in some sense, since it has usually been Columbia rather than Cornell that has proven to be Penn's nemesis. Coming into the weekend, the Quakers had never beaten Columbia on the road with Soriero pacing the sidelines, though they had enjoyed unprecedented success against the Big Red with a 28-3 advantage in the series. But while Penn's 69-59 victory Saturday over the winless Lions snapped the futility streak, it was Cornell that broke the Quakers' five-game winning streak with a 67-45 whipping Friday. "I don't know what it is about that trip," Soriero said. "It's a very demanding trip and it takes a real sense of mental toughness, which maybe with some of the younger players we didn't have." Penn didn't have any defense against the Big Red either -- a problem Soriero called a major reason for the loss, and one the Quakers are focusing on in practice this week. Cornell guard Mary LaMacchia ran wild on the Penn defense, racking up 30 points on 6-of-10 shooting from three-point range. But the Columbia game may have been even more disturbing. The Penn defense allowed the 0-20 Lions to shoot 57 percent from the field. "We really got away from that good, solid defense," Soriero said. "I think our defense generates our offense and when we don't have that aggressive defense, our offense gets sloppy. That's what we're trying to get back on track." · Three early decision applicants will wear the Red and Blue next season, adding some size to the Penn lineup. The most intriguing prospect is Carrie Fleck, a 6-foot-4 center from State College High School who may resurrect memories of Katarina Poulsen, the Quakers' all-Ivy center of a year ago. Soriero said Fleck "has good hands and a soft touch around the basket," though she will need to work on her footwork to adjust to the college game. Penn's other recruits are Megan Evans, a 6-0 small forward from Penn Charter in Philly, and Sue Van Stone, a 5-10 shooting guard from Mt. St. Joseph's Academy. · Sophomore power forward Deana Lewis, who sprained her right ankle against Cornell Friday and sat out the Columbia game Saturday, is practicing without pain and will be in the lineup this weekend at Harvard and Dartmouth.
