Final Stats

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- A furious finish was not enough for the Navy women's basketball team to overcome a sluggish start as the Mids fell, 60-51, to Penn Saturday night at Alumni Hall in Annapolis.

The Mids (1-3), who return just one starter and two letterswinners form last year's Patriot League regular season champions, struggled out of the gate against a Penn (2-1) team that returns three starters and 11 letterwinners from its 2013-14 team that won the Ivy League title. Navy fell behind by the score of 19-6 before going into halftime trialing, 29-17. The Mids shot 20 percent from the floor in the first half while the Quakers connected on 46 percent of their shots from the field in the opening 20 minutes of play.

"I was happy with our effort for most of the game," said Navy head coach Stefanie Pemper. "We just had shots that weren't falling. Who knows what we can do when we start shooting more consistently in the first half.

"I liked a lot of the shots we had in the first half; we just didn't hit them."

Penn continued its strong play early in the second half as it built leads of 39-19 (12:15) and 43-21 (9:29). Navy quickly chipped away at the deficit and closed to within 12 points at 47-35 with just under five minutes left to play. The Mids winnowed that margin down to 11 points at both 51-40 (3:52) and 54-43 (2:02).

After a missed shot by the Quakers, Chloe Stapleton (Sr., Cary, N.C.) had a great look at the basket only to see her three-point attempt spin in and then out of the basket that would have made it an eight-point game with 90 seconds remaining. Penn's Keiera Ray grabbed the errant shot and was quickly fouled, but only made on of her two free throw attempts. Sarah Reilly (Fr., Cincinnati, Ohio) soon scored a basket on the other end of the floor for the Mids, then Ray was fouled again with 44 seconds left. She again made just one attempt to make the score 56-45, then Stapleton drained a triple to pull the Mids to within eight points with 31 seconds remaining.

Ray was fouled again and this time she made both attempts to give Penn a 58-48 lead with 20 second remaining.

Navy made 42 percent of its field goal attempts in the second half, with the Mids sinking 50 percent -- 8-16 -- of their second half three-point attempts. Defensively Navy held Penn to just 27 percent shooting from the field after halftime.

In addition to holding a 35.2%-29.5% edge in field goal percentage for the game, Penn also held a 46-37 advantage on the glass. Navy did force the Quakers into 16 turnovers while the Mids committed 13 turnovers.

"We definitely are getting better," said Pemper. "We have played three really good teams in North Carolina A&T, Elon and obviously Penn, right out of the gate sandwiched around Mary Washington. We're really being challenged. Tonight, we were this close to losing by 25, and we just hung in there and some shots fell.

"We lost by a bigger margin here last year to Princeton (the team Penn beat to win the Ivy League and who shared the No. 1 position with Penn in the 2014-15 pre-season poll."

Stapleton accounted for 4 of Navy's 11 three-point field goals made in the game to tally a team-high 14 points. Danielle Poblarp (So., Topeka, Kan.) tallied a trio of triples to end the game with nine points, while Reilly snared 10 boards in the contest.

Penn's Ray would lead all players in the game with 22 points.

Navy will be back in Alumni Hall Tuesday night when the Mids play host to George Mason.