Last week the Penn Charter girls enjoyed a stretch of relative calm during the competitive Inter-Ac League season. The only league team on the schedule was Baldwin School, which has a losing record both in the Inter-Ac and overall.

The Quakers had been looking forward to their first meeting with the Academy of Notre Dame back on Friday, January 7. The two schools split in their home/away series last winter to tie for first place in the Inter-Ac (there was no official champion named). However, several inches of snow that Friday morning caused the contest to be postponed until January 19.

Last week, aside from the Baldwin bout, there were several non-league teams on the docket for the Quakers, including Wednesday's meeting with a squad that is a power in the Philadelphia Public League, Imhotep Charter.

As this game got underway, the visiting Lady Panthers scored the first three baskets, then PC came back to lead at the quarter and then go on to enjoy a 24-18 halftime advantage. The second half found Penn Charter more firmly in control, and the Quakers came away with a 54-36 victory.

They raised their record to 7-2 overall, while remaining 2-0 within the Inter-Ac. Two days after the Notre Dame game was snowed out, Penn Charter had managed to get in a 53-44 win over a traditionally-strong Philadelphia Catholic League School, Neumann-Goretti.

Last Wednesday Imhotep (1-4) started out with a drive and a short jumper by Samya Stevens sandwiched around a three-pointer by Taniyah Finney. Down 7-0 just 90 seconds into the encounter, the Quakers charged back with a 10-0 run that began with a score off an inbounds play by junior guard Aleah Snead.

The streak included a short bank shot and two lay-ups by freshman guard Kaylinn Bethea, who also dropped in a three-pointer at the end of the period to give the hosts a 15-11 edge.

Imhotep netted five free throws in the second period but only had one field goal, while Charter saw Snead score off a steal and stick a "three" from the top of the key. Junior forward Bella Toomey also got into the act with a transition bucket (assisted by Snead) and another lay-up. That afforded the Quakers a six-point lead (24-18) for halftime.

Numerous times in the first half, one team or the other knocked the ball loose from an opposing athlete and the ball then evaded the grasp of several players, skittering all around the floor. It brought to mind a greased pig chase at a county fair.

PC head coach Joe Maguire commented, "We've been talking about not trying to dribble loose balls. You want to grab it with two hands and secure it, make sure you get possession."

After the early scores by Imhotep at the start of the game, the Quakers had reversed the momentum partly through pressuring the Lady Panthers in transition and forcing turnovers.

However, Maguire cautioned, "We can't rely on that too much, because there are some teams that we aren't going to be able to press. We'll need to stop them in the half-court. The same thing goes on offense; we have to get better at scoring in the half-court and we can't depend on the transition too much."

At the beginning of the third quarter, PC's Toomey scored off an offensive rebound, and this would prove to be the start of a 15-point second half for the six-foot junior. Bethea and Snead continued to score, and when Toomey converted again off of a rebound with three-and-a-half minutes left in the period, PC led 40-22.

The Lady Panthers regained some ground at the end to make it 41-29 for the start of the fourth quarter. With reserve players filtering onto the floor for both sides, Charter added six points to its lead to win by 18.

Bethea posted a game-high 20 points and Toomey was close behind with 19. Snead finished with 12 and the Shoup sisters, junior Gracie and senior Maddie, contributed two points and one point, respectively. Imhotep was led by Stevens, with 14 points, and Finney, with 10.

With no big Inter-Ac League challenge immediately in front of them, the Quakers had become a little too relaxed, in Coach Maguire's opinion.

"Last week we had really good practices; they had it in their heads that they were going to play Notre Dame, and that helped," he related. "Today we weren't tough. That's something we need to get better at - the toughness and intensity that some of the elite teams in the area have that we're lacking at times."

UPDATE: PC easily won its other two games last week, first beating Baldwin 54-21. On Sunday at the Wells Fargo Center the Quakers rang up a 60-30 victory over West Catholic High School.