Strong defense not enough as Penn women’s basketball falls to Columbia 60-54 in Ivy Madness semifinals

The UPenn Quakers women’s basketball season came to an end Friday when they lost to Columbia in the Ivy Madness semifinals.  Penn showed strong defense and cut Columbia’s lead to as few as six in the final minutes.  But Columbia proved too strong and won the game 60-54.

Penn Coach Mike McLaughlin praised the defensive work of his team: “I don’t know if we could ask any more from our players.  The score was right where we neeed it to be.  Just couldn’t score enough.”

Columbia coach Megan Griffith praised the Penn team as well: I thought Penn played great tonight.  Th is March, right? This is why you play.  Credit to them for getting to this point and giving us their best.”

The Columbia Lions, wh are 23-5 on the season aand 13-1 in the Ivy League will advance to the championship game against Harvard.  Columbia, Princeton, and harvard have led the league all season, and some have predicted that all three could be earn berths to the NCAA tournament.

Penn’s defensive play kepth the team competitive with Columbia, which short just 36% in the first half and suffered ten turonovers while Columbia’s All-Ivy guard trio shot just 9 of 28 on the day. But both teams struggled on offense, and Penn sophomore guard Mataya Gayle picked up three early fouls.

Columbia started the second half strong and quickly moved to a 42-25 lead.  But the Penn Quakers were strong, aided by senior guard Stina Almqvist.  She and Gayle finished with 17 and 12 points respectively.  

Free throws from freshman guard Brooke Suttle brough Penn within six with 3:12 to play, but the Quaaker’s offense stalled and could gain no further ground. Columbia’s clutch free-throws and a series if misses by the Quakers sealed the win for Columbia.

Still, even making it this far in the tournament was a victory for a Penn team that started the year 1 and 5.  From that point on, Penn won five of their next six games and put themselves on a path to the Ivy League tournament.

As the team looks to do better in coming years, McLaughlin believes the tournament experience will e invaluable for his team.  “I think it takes players like Stina – that her growth allowed us to have a player who was really good.  If you looked at her as a sophomore, you probably wouldn’t say the same thing.”  Almqvist averaged just 11 minutes per game as a sophomore before leading the team in scoring as a junior.