PHILADELPHIA, PA. 2/23/2019 – The University of Pennsylvania staged another doubleheader for the men’s and women’s basketball teams facing the Big Red of Cornell. The women’s team looked to hold on to first place in the Ivy League while the men’s team wanted to get pointed in the right direction.
Women’s Basketball – Penn 69 Cornell 58
It was a tough game for the Penn Quakers as they showed grit in defeating the Big Red of Cornell, who stayed in contention the whole way. The Quakers led 55 – 49 going into the fourth quarter, and got the first basket of the final ten minutes, a three by Princess Aghayere. The Red and Blue missed their next 9 shots. Eleah Parker got them back on the scoreboard just over 6 minutes later. However, Cornell would only score twice in that span, two buckets by Samantha Widmann who scored 17 points. Penn closed out the game from the foul line.
Aghayere set a new career-mark scoring 23 points. She also tied her collegiate-best with 9 made field goals, and topped it off with 10 rebounds. It was the fourth double-double of the season for the senior forward. Ashley Russell added 17 points and Phoebe Sterba contributed 13 points. Eleah Parker scored 10 points. It was her 17th straight game scoring in double-digits.
Laura Bagwell-Katalinich led the Big Red with 22 points and pulled down 9 rebounds along with Widmann.
The Quakers improve to 18 – 4 and are 8 – 1 and occupy first place in the Ivy League. Second place Princeton comes to visit on Tuesday night.
Men’s Basketball – Penn 68 Cornell 50
The men’s game had a playoff type atmosphere about it. For Penn, a loss would do serious damage to their hopes of making the Ivy League Tournament. And for the first time in three games, they did not have to go into overtime.
The Quakers trailed at halftime by a 32 – 30 score. In the second half the Red and Blue turned up the defense and limited the Big Red to 18 points en route to the victory.
The issue was still in doubt when Jimmy Boeheim scored with 5:33 to play cutting the Penn lead to 54 – 48. Cornell would not score again until 49 seconds remained. Meanwhile, the Quakers reeled off 14 straight points over the five minutes highlighted by a four-point play by Antonio Woods at the 1:09 mark to give the Red and Blue a 20-point advantage. The Big Red went 0 – 5 from the floor in the deciding stretch.
Four Quakers broke double digits led by AJ Brodeur with 17 points and 10 rebounds, his 8th double-double of the season and 17th of his career. Devon Goodman added 16 points. Woods and Jake Silpe contributed 12 apiece.
Cornell guard Mike Morgan led all scorers with 21 points. He holds the nation’s third-longest double figures scoring streak at a school and an Ivy-record 77 games. No other Big Red player scored in double figures.
Every game has the look of a play-in game for the Quakers (16 – 10, 4 – 6). Next weekend Penn goes on the New England trip at Harvard, then Dartmouth. Cornell leads Penn in the standings (13 – 13, 5 – 5) and go to Brown and Yale next week.
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