Women’s Basketball Staying Home To Battle Ivy Foes Tigers, Quakers

The last time Penn and Princeton visited Ithaca, Cornell needed to beat both teams to stay alive in the race for the Ivy title. They did just that, outscoring the Tigers and Quakers by a combined 32 points before triumphing over Dartmouth for the right to represent the Ivy League in the NCAA Tournament.
The Red (7-9, 3-1 Ivy) are again already battling Dartmouth (8-9, 3-0) for first place in the conference standings, and this weekend is Cornell’s last opportunity to log some more wins before traveling to play Ivy powerhouses Harvard (10-7, 2-1) and Dartmouth.
Cornell will open the weekend tonight against Princeton (6-11, 1-2). Both teams are coming off of solid weekends — Cornell beat both Brown and Yale, and Princeton ended regulation tied with Dartmouth before losing by only four points to the league’s first-place team. Cornell currently has a four-game winning streak over the Tigers, and with a win tonight, the Red would even its all-time home record against Princeton at 14-14.[img_assist|nid=34818|title=Air Benson?|desc=Junior guard Lauren Benson will need to keep up her recent hot streak at home.|link=node|align=left|width=|height=0]
The Tigers feature sophomore guard/forward Addie Micir. Micir scored five points in 20 minutes against the Red last season, but this year she is leading Princeton with 12.9 points and 35.4 minutes a game. She has already attempted over 100 3-pointers, connecting on 39 percent. Freshman Lauren Edwards, another 6-0 guard/forward, is the only other Tiger averaging double digit points.
Cornell will square off with another perimeter-oriented team tomorrow evening when Penn visits Ithaca. Tomorrow will also be Cornell’s attempt to “Pack the House,” an NCAA-wide competition to get the highest attendance at a women’s basketball game. Penn has lost its last seven games, but the last time the Quakers won was on their last visit to New York against St. Francis.
The Quakers will be relying heavily on senior Carrie Biemer, the Ivy League’s leading scorer with over 17 points a game. A versatile 6-0 forward, Biemer is shooting 37 percent from behind the arc and 41 percent overall. In her last game against Cornell, Biemer scored a game-high 19 points on 8-of-17 shooting, including 3-of-5 from long range.
Another Penn senior, guard Kelly Scott, may give the Red defense some trouble. The team’s best shooting threat, Scott is connecting on 44 percent of her shots from the field and 40 percent from 3-point range. Scott is the Quaker’s only other double-digit scorer aside from Biemer with 10.9 points a game.
To counter Princeton’s youthful frontcourt and Penn’s senior guard duo, Cornell will be looking for another good weekend from junior co-captain Lauren Benson and her classmate Allie Fedorowicz. Benson earned Ivy Player of the Week honors after playing all 40 minutes and scoring 20 points against Brown, followed by a 15-point performance against Yale. After a rough night against Brown, Fedorowicz rebounded to score a game-high 17 points against Yale.