PHILADELPHIA – Coming off its sixth-straight season-opening victory Friday against Merrimack at The Palestra, the University of Pennsylvania women's basketball team heads onto the road for the first time to face Maine Sunday in Orono.
 
The Quakers took down the Warriors, 64-52, behind Mataya Gayle's 17 points and an impressive rookie debut from Katie Collins, who flirted with a triple double, scoring nine points with 10 rebounds and six blocks.
 
The Black Bears found success in their debut by beating a familiar foe for Penn, defeating La Salle, 65-51 at Memorial Gymnasium.
 
This matchup marks the fourth in the two program's histories and for the second straight year after Penn beat Maine, 72-69, last year at The Palestra.
 
GAME 2 – Penn (1-0, 0-0 Ivy) at Maine (1-0, 0-0 America East)
Sunday, Nov. 10, 2024 | 11:30 a.m.
Memorial Gymnasium | Orono, Maine
Watch Live on AmericaEast.TV ($) | Live Stats
Penn Game Notes (PDF)  | Maine Game Notes (PDF)
 
The Penn-Maine Series
Penn and Maine are meeting for the fourth time in program history on Sunday, the Quakers with a 2-1 edge.
 
This is the return trip of last season's matchup at The Palestra when Penn came away with a close 72-69 win.
 
Mataya Gayle put together a career performance in the victory over Maine last season when she poured in a career-high 28 points on 10-for-20 shooting from the floor with two threes. She added a game-high three steals, three assists, and seven boards and was subsequently named USBWA National Rookie of the Week for her performance. Stina Almqvist added 14 points, four rebounds, and two assists.
 
Sunday marks the first-ever meeting between the two teams in Orono since the series began back in 2010. Maine's only victory over Penn came back in 2018 at the Navy Classic in Annapolis. The Black Bears won, 47-46.
 
Hello, Opening Week!
Penn opened its 2024-25 season Friday against Merrimack at The Palestra with a 64-52 victory and now heads to Maine on Sunday in a return trip of a home-and-home with the Black Bears. Penn claimed victory over both teams in 2023-24.
 
The Quakers are now 9-6 in home openers in the Mike McLaughlin coaching era and have won six consecutive dating back to 2018-19.
 
Five days after its date with Merrimack, Penn returns to the Cathedral of College Basketball to host Siena on Wednesday. The Red and Blue defeated the Saints, 85-79, last season.
 
Last Time Out
Penn opened its 2024-25 campaign with a great start following a season-opening win over Merrimack on Friday.
 
Gayle picked up where she left off from last year and led the Quakers with a team-high 17 points on 50 percent (7-for-14) shooting. She added four rebounds and four steals.
 
The eye-popping performance of the day came from freshman Katie Collins, who dazzled the Palestra crowd with nine points, 10 boards, and six blocks in her collegiate debut. She also put in a team-high 38 minutes on the floor.
 
Almqvist also found herself in double-figures, chipping in 15 points with eight rebounds and three assists.
 
Saniah Caldwell led the bench unit with nine poits on a pair of three-pointers. Penn's bench outscored Maine's bench, 13-2.
 
Kicking Things Off
Things are certainly looking up for the Quakers as the 2024-25 season gets underway this week. Penn was picked to finish fourth in the Ivy League's preseason poll, earning 75 voting points by a panel of 16 media members.
 
Penn returns a pair of key starters from last year in senior Stina Almqvist (second-team All-Ivy) and sophomore Gayle (Ivy Rookie of the Year). Almqvist and Groetsch were named the Quakers' captains for the season.
 
Another Year of Madness
Penn completed another successful season in 2023-24 after qualifying for Ivy Madness for the fifth time in six seasons, narrowly falling to top-seeded and eventual champion Princeton, 59-54, in the semifinals.
 
Gayle dropped a team-high 20 points against the Tigers and was subsequently named a member of the Ivy League's All-Tournament team.
 
The Quakers went 15-13 overall and 7-7 in Ancient Eight play by season's end. In addition, Penn finished Big 5 play with a 1-3 record and a fourth-place finish.
 
Fresh Faces
Six student-athletes make up Penn Women's Basketball's Class of 2028 including four guards and two forwards.
 
Guards include Ashna Tambe, Sarah Miller, Brooke Suttle, and Reagan Jamison.
 
The Quakers have two new forwards in Katie Collins and Gabriella Kelley.
 
Tambe (The Hockaday School), Kelley (SF University HS), and Suttle (Campbell) scored over 1,000 points in their high school careers with Tambe leaving as the program's all-time leading scorer (with over 1,600 points).
 
Impressive First Season
Gayle's rookie campaign was nothing short of impressive as she looks for more of the same in 2024-25, hoping to take that next step.
 
She was one of just three Quakers—and the only freshman—to start all 28 games and finished third on the team in scoring (14.3 ppg), while grabbing 86 rebounds (3.1 rpg). Among Ivy players, she was fifth in three-pointers per game (1.8), eighth in assists (3.1), eighth in steals (1.5) and 10th in points (14.3) as a freshman.
 
Gayle also made her national mark after being named USBWA National Rookie of the Week on Jan. 3 when she dropped 28 points, seven rebounds, three assists, and three steals in a victory over eventual America East champion Maine.
 
20-Win Seasons
Penn is the only team in the Ivy League to surpass the 20-win plateau in seven-straight years under Coach Mike McLaughlin after concluding the 2019-20 campaign. With no play in the Ivy League in 2020-21 due to the pandemic, the 2021-22 season was the first under-.500 season for the Quakers since the 2011-12 season when Penn went 13-15 (Coach McLaughlin's third season at the helm) but bounced back last year with a 17-12 tally.
 
All-Time Wins Leader
Coach McLaughlin is Penn's all-time wins leader, surpassing Lois Ashley's mark of 128 wins in 12 seasons with his 129th win at Dartmouth on March 3, 2017. The head man now sits with an record of 244-162 (.600) at Penn. In addition, McLaughlin earned the 650th win of his career last season against Harvard; that ranks him ninth among active Division I coaches.
 
Penn And The Power Six
Penn has traditionally played a challenging non-conference schedule since McLaughlin took the helm in 2009-10. In fact, the Quakers have played six non-conference top-15 teams in the last 12 seasons (#3 Notre Dame in 2011-12, #5 Notre Dame in 2013-14, #4 Tennessee 2014-15, #14 Duke in 2015-16, #3 Notre Dame in 2017-18, #1 Notre Dame in 2018-19).
 
Among non-league foes, Penn has scheduled its share of teams from the power six conferences. En route to the Ivy title in 2013-14, the Quakers earned their first-ever win over an ACC opponent with a 67-66 win at Miami (Fla). Last season, Penn took on #23 Marquette and Villanova last season.
 
Winning Streaks
Prior to McLaughlin, Penn had just one winning streak of more than seven games in its entire history (21). However, in the last six seasons, the Quakers have had nine such winning streaks, including an 11-game win streak that the Quakers were on last season until falling at Princeton (55-40) on January 16. It marked the second-longest stretch in program history only to the 21 from 2000-01.
 
Additionally, two seasons ago, the Quakers sported 12 straight wins in The Palestra from December 2022 to mid-February 2023, a program record that eclipsed the 10 set back in the 21-game stretch.
 
Magic Number: 60
The statistic that may most indicate a Penn win or loss? 60 points. Penn has won 151 of its last 163 regular season games when scoring at least 60 points in regulation. Since head coach Mike McLaughlin took over at Penn, the Quakers are 189-214 (.906) when they reach that number (161-16 over the last eight seasons). In comparison, the Quakers are just 50-136 (.288) when they've scored less than 60 points under McLaughlin. The trend continues defensively. Over the last 11 seasons, the Red and Blue are 50-98 (.347) when allowing 60 points or more. But when holding opponents under that number, the Quakers hold a healthy winning record of 186-36 (.836).
 
For the latest on Penn women's basketball, follow @PennWBB on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.