PHILADELPHIA – The Ursinus Women's Basketball team faced a Division I opponent for the first time since 1983 as they dropped an 89-29 contest to Penn on Thursday afternoon at the historic Palestra on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania.
The Bears fall to 2-7 overall on the season as they took on the Quakers for the ninth overall meeting in program history. Meanwhile, the Quakers of the Ivy League improved to 5-7 overall on the season.
Senior Gabby Downs and sophomore Alison Lisanti each scored nine points to lead the Bears. Freshman Chinwe Irondi added four points and a team-high five rebounds while sophomore Kelly Grant dished out a team-high three assists along with matching Irondi with five rebounds.
Ursinus played strong defense early as they forced the Quakers to miss their first five shots of the contest. Following four-straight points from Penn, Irondi got the Bears on the board with a jumper of the 6:06-mark of the first quarter to make it a 4-2 contest. Penn rattled off seven-straight points to take an 11-2 advantage at the 3:52-mark of the first quarter before a three-pointer from Sarah DiLello snapped the run to make it 11-5. The Quakers closed out the first quarter with the final seven points and went up 18-5. Behind suffocating defense, Penn was able to hold the Bears scoreless in the second quarter and scored 23 points to take a sizable lead into the half.
Penn picked up where the left off to start the third quarter with a trio of three-pointers to go up 50-5 at the 7:57-mark. Downs ended the Bears scoring drought just 24 seconds later with a three-pointer and followed that with a second triple at the 2:35-mark. The Quakers continued to stay hot from the field in the third quarter as they shot 64.3 (9-of-14) overall and 4-of-6 (66.7%) from beyond the arc. Downs got things started for Ursinus in the fourth quarter as she converted a three-point play at the 7:48-mark and set up Irondi for a layup on the next possession. Lisanti began to heat up from beyond the arc with just under four minutes left in regulation as she buried three-straight triples for the Bears to close out the contest.
The Bears shot 20 percent (9-of-45) from the field and went 6-of-25 (24%) from three-point range. Ursinus went 5-of-8 (62.5%) from the free throw line as well. Meanwhile, the Quakers shot 54.9 percent (39-of-71) from the field and 31 percent (9-of-29) from beyond the arc. Penn made both free throw attempts and held a 46-23 rebounding advantage as they pace the Ivy League at 41.3 rebounds per game.
Lizzy Groetsch led the Quakers with a game-high 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting from the field while Jordan Obi and Mandy McGurk posted 10 points apiece. Kennedy Suttle added eight points and a game-high five steals.
Ursinus returns to Centennial Conference play on Wednesday, January 5th as they will travel to face Washington College at 6 p.m.