The University of Pennsylvania women’s basketball team is set to continue its Ivy League schedule with two away games this weekend. The Quakers will face Cornell on Friday in Ithaca, New York, and Columbia on Saturday in New York City.
Penn enters the weekend with a 13-8 overall record and a 3-5 mark in conference play after a recent loss to No. 23 Princeton. In that game, both Simone Sawyer and Mataya Gayle led Penn with 16 points each, while Tina Njike contributed nine points and ten rebounds.
In their previous meeting against Cornell, the Quakers saw their 16-game winning streak over the Big Red end with a 62-58 defeat at the Palestra. Mataya Gayle scored 20 points for Penn, and Katie Collins had a double-double with 13 points and 12 rebounds. Cornell’s Emily Pape and Rachel Kaus combined for 38 points as Cornell shot efficiently from three-point range.
The last time Penn played Columbia, they secured an upset win at home, defeating the Lions 64-55. Four Quakers reached double figures in scoring, led by Gayle’s 16 points and seven assists. Columbia struggled from beyond the arc but kept the game close until late in the fourth quarter.
Cornell comes into Friday’s matchup tied with Penn for fifth place in the Ivy League standings at 3-5 after losing two straight games since beating Penn. The Big Red recently lost to Columbia by a wide margin, with Kelsey Langston leading Cornell in scoring with a career-high 13 points. Offensively, Cornell ranks last in the conference for both scoring average and rebounding statistics.
Columbia has continued its strong offensive performance behind Riley Weiss, who scored 38 points against Cornell on nine made three-pointers—tying her own school record for threes made in a single game this season. The Lions rank just behind Princeton among Ivy League teams for scoring offense and are among league leaders in offensive rebounds per game.
Statistically, Penn leads all Ivy League teams—and ranks nineteenth nationally—in free throw percentage at .777. Katie Collins is second among Ivy players in rebounds per game (7.9) and blocked shots (1.6), while Simone Sawyer leads all Ivy players in free throw percentage (.917). Mataya Gayle is first among conference players in assists per game (4.2) and third in steals per game (2.0).
This season marks only the third time that five players have served as captains for Penn women’s basketball: seniors Saniah Caldwell, Simone Sawyer, Georgia Heine; junior Mataya Gayle; and sophomore Katie Collins make up this year’s leadership group.
Collins averages nearly eight rebounds per contest—second-best among Ivy League players—and has recorded thirty-three blocks so far this season. Gayle has averaged sixteen points over her last eight games and needs fifteen more to reach one thousand career points.
