PHILADELPHIA – Back in the hunt! The University of Pennsylvania women's basketball team polished off a 2-0 weekend sweep and inserted themselves back into the Ivy Madness picture with a 73-61 victory over Brown Saturday evening at The Palestra.
Penn improved to a record of 13-10, now 4-6 in Ivy League play and tied for fourth place with the Bears, who fell to 10-13, 4-6.
Most notably, it was a historic performance for senior
Stina Almqvist who notched 26 points, including the 1,000th for her career.
Quaker Notemeal
*Almqvist became the 26th player in program history to reach the 1,000-point milestone. Remarkably, she's scored 827 of her 1,013 career points over the last two seasons. She had 429 in 2023-24 and so far this season, has notched 398.
*Almqvist finished the evening with 26 points and 12 rebounds for her fifth double-double of the year. She converted 11 of her 17 field-goal attempts.
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Sarah Miller exploded for 14 points in the third quarter alone, nailing five three-pointers to total 17 points off the bench for the Quakers.
Abby Sharpe also provided a spark off the bench with 10 points in 14 minutes.
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Mataya Gayle followed up a strong performance on Friday with another Saturday, scoring seven points with a game-high eight assists. She also added three steals.
*As a team, Penn shot 44.1 percent (26-for-59) from the field and 80 percent (12-for-15) from the free-throw line. The defense held Brown to just 36.5 percent shooting (19-for-52) overall from the field and was 8-of-22 (36.4 percent) from deep.
*The Quakers out-scored the Bears in bench points, 30-2, and scored 17 points off 12 turnovers.
*Gianna Aiello led Brown with a team-high 18 points and eight boards.
How It Happened
Penn won the opening tipoff and took the first lead of the game following two free throws from Almqvist. It took nearly five minutes for the Quakers to get their first field goal, a three-pointer for
Sarah Miller as the Bears led 6-5 at the under-5 media timeout with 4:13 remaining.
Coming out of the break,
Brooke Suttle crashed the boards to get the offensive rebound, pouring in the second-chance layup to get the Quakers back in front, 7-6.
Penn ended the period on a tear, getting triples to fall from both Sharpe and Gayle, who beat the buzzer to give the Quakers a 15-12 edge after one.
Sharpe once again cashed in from beyond-the-arc to begin the second, as Penn's lead ballooned to 20-12 following Almqvist's second basket of the day.
A layup for
Katie Collins upped the run to 7-0 to begin the second period, prompting Brown's head coach to spend an unexpected timeout, trailing Penn 22-12.
The Bears trimmed the deficit to single digits with 4:52 to go in the half, but that's when Almqvist went bonkers, scoring nine straight points—which included a layup for her 1,000th-career point—to close out the half with Penn ahead 33-18.
The Quakers began the second half on a 6-0 run, leading 39-20 with over seven minutes remaining as the Bears took a timeout.
As Miller continued to show her dominance from beyond-the-arc with three triples, Brown managed to keep the game somewhat close, an 11-point lead for the Quakers with 2:32 to go in the third stanza.
Miller wouldn't go away, drilling another three—her fifth of the game and fourth of the quarter—and scored a layup and-one to get to 17 points as the Quakers led 57-43 heading into the final frame.
Almqvist continued her strong performance with a layup to open the fourth, upping the Penn lead to 59-43 with 9:16 remaining.
The Quakers had the game in hand by the four-minute mark of the period as Almqvist provided a dagger shot with 3:12 left, making it a 63-46 game. The Bears had a couple triples and some foul shots to get as close as 12 points, but Penn settled for a 73-61 victory to complete the weekend sweep.
Up Next
There's four games remaining in the regular season, as Penn continues its hunt for an Ivy Madness berth. The stretch begins with Cornell next Saturday at 2:30 p.m. at The Palestra.
For the latest on Penn women's basketball, follow @PennWBB on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.
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