Women's Basketball Outruns the Foxes; Wins Home Season Ope..

Penn opened The Palestra season in style as four Quakers finished in
double figures led by Jewel Clark with 27 points.

Dec. 1, 2003

PHILADELPHIA -- Penn women's basketball battled back and forth all
night with Marist, but pulled out an 86-78 victory to open the 2003-04
home season at The Palestra. Jewel Clark led the way with her second
20-point night of the season, scoring 27, while freshman Joey Rhoads
dropped in a career-high 15 points off the bench.

The contest started off as a game of runs by both teams. The Red and
Blue (2-2, 0-0 Ivy) came out shooting, taking a 9-0 lead to begin the
game capped by a Cat Makarewich three-pointer at the 17:34 mark.
Marist (1-2, 0-0 MAAC) answered back with a 12-3 run of its own to
tie the score with 13 minutes remaining in the half.

Penn jumped out to its largest lead of the game, 37-26, on a Jennifer
Fleischer field goal and free throw with 3:18 left before the break.
Fleischer finished with eight points and led everyone on the boards
by picking up nine rebounds for the second time this season. The Red
Foxes made another run to close out the first half, scoring 13
unanswered points and took a 39-37 lead into the locker room.

The Quakers bounced back in the second half, knotting the score at 45 at
16:54 but Marist continued to battle, taking the lead back at 50-45,
four minutes into the second period. Penn jumped back in front, 54-52, on a
Jewel Clark field goal a minute and a half later. Clark finished the
game as high-scorer with 27 points on 10-of-17 shooting. She also had six
assists and six rebounds.

After eight lead changes over the next five minutes, the Red and Blue
went ahead to stay on a Joey Rhoads three-pointer at the 9:13 mark.
Rhoads was a perfect 3-of-3 from beyond the arc. She scored 15 points,
a career high, in 23 quality minutes off the bench. The trey from the
freshman guard occurred in the midst of a 7-2 Quakers run. Clark made
it 74-67 after receiving a needle threading pass from Makarewich with
just under eight minutes remaining. Makarewich also scored in double
figures with 11 points (3-of-6) as did senior guard Mikaelyn Austin
who poured in 16 points to go along with her three rebounds and five
assists.

Penn closed the game out hitting 4-of-6 free throws in the final
minute. The Quakers scored 80 points in a game for the first time
since defeating Brown, 82-58, last season at The Palestra
(Feb. 28, 2003).

Marist had four players in double figures as well with Stephanie Del
Preore leading the way with 21 points. Maureen Magarity scored 18,
Kristin Keller had 12 and Laura Whitney dropped in 11 in the loss.

The Quakers travel for their next five games with the first stop coming
against Philadelphia Big 5 opponent Villanova on Dec. 4 at the Pavilion.
Game time is 7:30 p.m.

Written by Mat Kanan, associate director of athletic communications.