NEW HAVEN, Conn. – In a game where the final score was nowhere near an indication of how close the game was, the second-seeded University of Pennsylvania women's basketball team fell to top-seeded Princeton on Sunday in the Ivy League Tournament final, 65-54.
 
Penn and Princeton split the regular-season series and were tied with five minutes to go on Yale's John J. Lee Amphitheater neutral court. In fact, the Tigers' lead was just one point with 3:30 left to play. However, Princeton scored 12 of the game's final 14 points and held the Quakers without a field goal over the final 6:28 to capture the title and accompanying NCAA bid for the second straight year.
  
Notes
*Penn is now 23-6 overall, boasting the second-most wins in program history. With an RPI of 52 entering the game, the Quakers hope for an at-large selection into the NCAA Tournament. 

*This marked the third time in as many years Penn and Princeton have met in the Ivy League Tournament final. The Quakers won the first, in 2017, while the Tigers have won the last two.
 
*Senior Ashley Russell and sophomore Eleah Parker were named to the All-Tournament Team.
 
*Parker finished the game with a double-double, her tenth this season and 17th at Penn, with 10 points and 11 rebounds.
 
*Parker extended her streak of double-figure scoring games to 25.
 
*Russell finished with 14 points, her 16th double-figure scoring game this season and second this weekend (she had 34 in the tournament).
 
*Junior Kendall Grasela had nine points, two shy of her career high which she set earlier this season against Princeton.
 
*Junior Phoebe Sterba knocked down two three-point shots, giving her 70 on the season which ties her with Colleen Kelly (1997-98) for third on Penn's single-season list.
 
How It Happened
Princeton scored eight of the game's first 10 points, but Penn responded with an 8-0 run covering just 1:23 of game time to take a 10-8 lead as Phoebe Sterba knocked down a three-pointer and Ashley Russell got three the old-fashioned way. The teams traded the lead five times in the period after that, the Tigers scoring the last four points to take a 19-17 lead after one.
 
The top seed then scored the first four points of the second quarter, an 8-0 run that put them up 23-17. Slowly, Penn chipped away: A Russell foul shot here. An Eleah Parker jump hook there. A Russell bank shot (intended or not). Next thing you knew, Russell was hitting a pair of free throws and the Quakers were back in front, 24-23. Princeton's offensive drought went nearly six minutes, but two uncharacteristic Penn turnovers in the final minute of the period led to five Tigers points and the Quakers' lead was 31-30 at the half.
 
Points were hard to come by early in the third, the teams combining for just five points (Penn 3, Princeton 2) in the first four minutes. The Quakers lead grew to seven immediately after the media timeout, Sterba hitting a three-pointer to make it 41-34, but Princeton quickly responded with a trey of its own. The Red and Blue's lead went back to six on a few occasions, but the Quakers advantage was just 47-44 after three periods.
 
Princeton tied it up to start the fourth quarter, Bella Alarie blocking Parker's shot from the left block and the Tigers turning it into an and-1 layup at the other end. Another steal gave Princeton its first lead since early in the third quarter when Carlie Littlefield dribbled and dribbled and dribbled before finding Alarie wide open for a layup to make it 49-47. That forced a Penn timeout.
 
Princess Aghayere drove the lane out of the stoppage and was fouled, hitting both foul shots to tie things up at 49-49, but Littlefield went coast-to-coast off a Penn miss to put Princeton back in front with 6:45 to play. Grasela knotted it up with a runner in the lane, but Gabrielle Rush got free in the lane and banked one home to put the Tigers back in front at the final media timeout.
 
Grasela made one of two free throws out of the break to make Princeton's lead just 53-52, but Littlefield again got to the basket uncontested to make it 55-52 as the game went inside three minutes. Sterba took a three-pointer that went in and out, and instead Julia Cunningham swished a trey from the right wing that pushed Princeton up by six points—matching its largest lead of the day to that point—with 2:16 to play.
 
Penn called timeout, and Aghayere was fouled almost immediately as she received a pass. The senior made just one of the two free throws, however, so it was till 58-53. Littlefield missed a jumper with 1:34 left, but Parker fouled her and she hit one of her two shots.
 
Alarie then stole Aghayere's pass with 1:20 left and Penn was forced to start fouling at that point. Princeton made the shots to pull away.