PHILADELPHIA - A hot shooting and balanced effort offensively lifted the University of Pennsylvania women's basketball team to an impressive 79-56 victory over Columbia on Friday night. The win pushes Penn to 17-4 overall and an Ivy League-leading 7-1 in conference play. 

PENN NEWS AND NOTES
*The Quakers boasted five players in double-digit scoring for the first time this season and first time since a win at Brown last season (Feb. 2, 2018).

*Senior Princess Aghayere matched her season high, set last weekend at Harvard, with 19 points, going 8-for-12 from the field including a perfect 3-for-3 from deep. 

*Phoebe Sterba tallied her highest point total since a career-best 21 at Princeton, finishing with 16, including four 3-pointers. 

*Sophomore Eleah Parker finished in double digits for the 17th-straight game, recording 12 points with five rebounds and a career-high three assists.

*A game removed from her first career double-double, senior captain Ashley Russell nearly repeated the feat, posting 15 points and nine rebounds with five assists.

*Sophomore Michae Jones continued her hot streak off the bench, finishing with 10 points on 4-of-6 shooting. Jones posted a career-high 15 points last time out at Harvard.

*Kendall Grasela matched her career high, dishing eight assists on the night. 

*The Quakers finished with 12 made 3-pointers, tying a season high and just one short of the McLaughlin-era record. Penn is 29-0 under Coach McLaughlin when making at least 10 3-pointers.

*Penn improves to 49-18 all-time against Columbia, as the Quakers have won 16 straight against the Lions.

*The 32 points scored in the second quarter by Penn are the most in a single 10-minute period this season for the Quakers, and only two shy of the program record. It is the highest scoring quarter for Penn against an Ivy League foe. 

*The Quakers shot 48 percent from the field, including a 41 percent clip from behind the 3-point line. Penn is 13-0 this year when shooting at least 40 percent. 

*The 23-point margin of victory was the worst loss this season for the Lions. It was the biggest for Penn over Columbia at home since a 79-43 win on Jan. 28, 2000. 

HOW IT HAPPENED
The Quakers got to work in the paint from the opening tip. Princess Aghayere drove in for the layup to open the scoring, before a floater from Eleah Parker to extend the lead. Columbia got on the board following a layup down low, but Penn responded with a pair of three-point plays – a second chance trey from Sterba and another the old-fashioned way by Russell.

A Sterba layup gave Penn a 12-4 lead going into the final media timeout of the first quarter. The Lions clawed back to within six after a jumper in the paint, but Russell struck back from behind the arc to extend the lead to nine. A bucket from each team with under 30 seconds left in the first frame saw the Quakers lead 17-8 after ten minutes.

Penn continued to dominate in the opening stages of the second quarter, breaking off an 8-0 run in the first five. Jones scored the period's first four points – a fast-break layup to open the scoring, and a mid-range jumper on the next possession – and a pair of layups from Crawford and Parker capped it off.

The Lions continued to struggle underneath, in most part because of Parker's presence in the paint. Sterba nailed a three to give Penn a 19-point lead but the Quakers were unable to score for the remainder of the half, allowing the Lions to break off a 7-0 run. The Quakers entered the intermission with a 33-21 lead.

Penn came out in the second half with a hot hand. The Quakers scored 32 points in the third quarter, shooting 65 percent from the field (13-20) and 62.5 percent (5-8) from beyond the arc. Aghayere was particularly in form, scoring 12 of her points off 5-7 from the field and 2-2 from long range.

Aghayere opened the scoring on Penn's first possession, and Sterba followed with five points of her own on the next two possessions. The Quakers continued their red-hot shooting, developing a 17-point lead within the first three minutes of the quarter, and not missing a shot in that time.

Jones and Columbia's Madison Hardy each sank a trey to make it 49-31 heading into the first media timeout of the half. The Quakers broke off a 14-3 run out of the timeout to take a 29-point lead – Penn's largest of the game.

Columbia cut the lead to 19 early in the fourth quarter, but that's as close as they could get. The Quakers closed out the game maintaining at least a 22-point lead for the game's final eight minutes en route to their seventh league win.

WHAT'S NEXT?
The Quakers conclude the weekend with the season's second meeting of the season vs. Cornell, hosting the Big Red on Saturday at 4:30 p.m.