Dartmouth

When: Saturday at 6 p.m., Memorial Field, Hanover, N.H. Radio: WNTP-AM (990). Records: Penn, 0-2, 0-0 Ivy League; Dartmouth, 1-1, 0-0. Coaches: Penn, Al Bagnoli (20th season, 131-59); Dartmouth, Buddy Teevens (12th season, 43-69-2). Series: Penn leads, 44-32-2. Bagnoli started out 3-3 against the Big Green, but Penn has won 12 of 13 against Dartmouth since then. WHAT TO WATCH Dartmouth is the only Ivy team to score 20 or more points against the Quakers in their two most recent meetings.

TV/Radio: TCN; WFIL-AM (560). Records: Dartmouth, 2-0. Penn, 1-1. This is the Ivy League opener for both teams. Coaches: Dartmouth, Buddy Teevens (11th season, 37-63-2. Penn, Al Bagnoli (19th season, 209-76). Series: Penn leads, 43-32-2. Dartmouth outlook: Nick Schwieger is expected to play after missing last week's game with flu symptoms. In his absence, freshman tailback Dominick Pierre ran for 110 yards and two touchdowns on 25 carries, earning Ivy League co-rookie of the week honors.

When Princeton coach Bill Carmody asked his team to shut down Dartmouth's two guards, his players went overboard. No. 11 Princeton held host Dartmouth's starting backcourt scoreless and routed the Big Green, 71-39, last night. Dartmouth guards P.J. Halas and Greg Buth, who average a total of 20 points a game, were a combined 0-for-15 from the field. Together, they had only two assists along with five turnovers. Overall, Dartmouth shot only 29 percent from the field and missed 16 of 19 shots from three-point range against the nation's stingiest defensive team, which allows only 50 points per game.

Penn last night played a team reminiscent of the Princeton Tigers, the undisputed kingpins of the Ivy League. Most people know and appreciate Princeton's winning style of play. In the end, however, Dartmouth was no Princeton. The Quakers overcame the Big Green's deliberate motion offense to register a 76-63 triumph at the Palestra - a victory that assured them of at least a .500 season. And with four games remaining on their schedule, they now need only one more victory to finish above .500 for the first time since 1985-86.

When the coaching staff at Dartmouth saw the upside of St. Joseph's Prep offensive lineman John Vellutato, it had one question for Hawklets coach Gil Brooks: "Why wasn't anyone else recruiting this guy?" Vellutato, a 6-foot-5, 325-pounder, has given an oral commitment to play his college football with the Big Green. "They looked at him and saw a guy who's going to get better and better," said Brooks. "John's best days are still ahead of him. The Dartmouth coaching staff told me they got a steal.

The closer Gil Brooks looked at the game films, the more he realized that St. Joseph's Prep senior Matt Battipaglia had come up with an incredible football season. Battipaglia, a 6-foot-5, 295-pound offensive tackle, helped make the Hawks one of the best teams in the area last season. They finished 12-1 and were ranked sixth in Southeastern Pennsylvania by The Inquirer. He also helped make the Prep's offensive line the best in the city. Yesterday, Battipaglia announced that he will play for Dartmouth next season.

It may not be Ripkenesque, but the University of Pennsylvania has a little consecutive-game magic of its own going. Penn's football team has won 21 straight games, a Division I-AA record. The players embrace it, and all the hoopla that surrounds it. Sure, they think about The Streak. Sure, they think about who might end it. William & Mary, right? The school that Penn plays near midseason, the one that gives players scholarships to play, unlike Penn and its Ivy League opponents.

Those who saw it will have a hard time forgetting the way Penn's Hassan Duncombe tipped in a missed free throw as time ran out to lift the Quakers to a 51-50 win over visiting Princeton last Tuesday. But Penn had better forget it. Sure, the win was important because it helped keep the Quakers in the running for the Ivy League title. But in the long run it was just one game and Penn still has eight left this season, beginning with tonight's clash against visiting Dartmouth.

If this is the Ivy League, this must be about Penn and Princeton, right? In almost every one of the 33 years of the league's existence, either the Quakers or the Tigers have been the preseason favorites, with the other not far behind. Not this time, however. Would you believe that neither Penn nor Princeton was picked to finish first or second in a preseason poll of the league's coaches? Princeton coach Pete Carril, the sage of the Ivy League, said that seemed fair to him. "They wouldn't be honest if they picked us," he said.

Sophomore Shaqwedia Wallace scored 18 points to lead Temple past Dartmouth, 65-29, in a nonleague women's basketball game at the Liacouras Center. Shenita Landry added 14 points and eight rebounds, and Shanea Cotton had 11 points and nine rebounds the Owls (4-2), who have won four straight. Dartmouth (1-6) took an early, 10-4 lead, but the Owls went on a 23-0 run, holding the Ivy Leaguers scoreless over an eight-minute period. Wallace and Landry each had points in the surge, and Temple took a 36-18 lead at halftime.

HANOVER, N.H. - On to Harvard. Though Penn struggled offensively for much of the game, the Quakers edged Dartmouth, 57-54, on Friday night to set up an Ivy League showdown Saturday in Boston against Harvard. A win Saturday would pull Penn (16-11, 8-2 Ivy) into a tie in the loss column in league play behind the Crimson (24-3, 10-1), who won the teams' Feb. 10 meeting at the Palestra, 56-50. Harvard avenged its only Ivy loss with a win Friday over visiting Princeton.

Most Penn fans aren't inclined to ask Princeton for favors, and Quakers coach Jerome Allen insists that he's keeping his program focused only on what it can control. But moments after the Quakers scratched out a 58-55 win over Dartmouth at the Palestra, Penn's faint Ivy League title hopes were given new life thanks to Princeton's 70-62 upset of No. 25 Harvard at Jadwin Gym. "This thing is by no means even close to finished," said Penn guard Zack Rosen, whose three-pointer with 3.4 seconds left broke a 55-all tie and won it for the Quakers.

Most Penn fans aren't inclined to ask Princeton for favors, and Quakers coach Jerome Allen insists that he's keeping his program focused only on what it can control. But moments after the Quakers scratched out a 58-55 win over Dartmouth at the Palestra, Penn's faint Ivy League title hopes were given new life thanks to Princeton's 70-62 upset of No. 25 Harvard at Jadwin Gym. "This thing is by no means even close to finished," said Penn guard Zack Rosen, whose three-pointer with 3.4 seconds left broke a 55-all tie and won it for the Quakers.

Laurin Mincy scored a career-high 25 points, Alyssa Thomas had 23, and No. 5 Maryland used a strong second half to defeat previously unbeaten and 19th-ranked Delaware, 85-76, on Thursday night in College Park, Md. The Terrapins (13-0) trailed by 44-41 before Mincy scored nine points in a 15-2 run that put Maryland ahead by 10 with 13 minutes, 51 seconds left. After the Blue Hens closed to 56-50, Anjale Barrett contributed the final seven points to a 9-2 spurt that upped the margin to 13. Elena Delle Donne scored 32 for the Blue Hens (10-1)

Cheltenham senior Ciara Andrews, a Class AAAA all-state basketball selection last season who needs just 68 points to reach 1,000 in her high school career, signed a letter of intent Friday to play for St. Joseph's. Andrews said one of the reasons she picked the Hawks - over schools such as Dayton, Rice, Rider, and Dartmouth - was that it would enable her family and friends to see her play. "I liked the coaching staff there," the 5-foot-7 guard said. "St. Joe's was the first college that showed interest in me, going back to my sophomore year when they saw me playing in pickup games.

PENN (4-2, 3-0) has played two Ivy League road games. The Quakers won both, at Dartmouth (2-4, 1-2) and Columbia (0-6, 0-3), on touchdowns in the closing seconds. They have two trips left. Tomorrow they're at Brown (5-1, 2-1), and on Nov. 12 they travel to Harvard (3-0, 5-1). Princeton (1-5, 1-2) and Cornell (2-4, 0-3) have to visit West Philly. If the Quakers are going to become the first to threepeat since Penn won five straight (the first two shared) from 1982-86, they'll mostly need to come up large away from Franklin Field.

THREE WEEKS AGO, Temple won at Maryland by 31 points. A week later, it lost at home to Toledo by 23. Last week, the Owls (4-2, 2-1 MAC East) won at Ball State, 42-zip. Tomorrow afternoon, they host Buffalo (2-4, 1-1), which just upset preseason division favorite Ohio. So, how will the Owls react to another blowout win this time? "It's a constant education as to what is true," said first-year coach Steve Addazio. "The facts are, we have to be smart enough to figure out that we have to practice hard, that we have to have an edge to us, that we can't take our foot off the gas. That's human nature.

Dartmouth golf coach Rich Parker knew he'd need the guys at the bottom of his lineup to produce if his team had any design on winning the Big Five Invitational, so he spent the week exchanging e-mails with sophomore Joey Maziar. "I've had a frustrating year basically, and he e-mailed me to say: 'I know you're good. Just stay confident and play your own game,' " Maziar said after his inspired play proved to be the difference in leading the Big Green to the team title of the event at Plymouth Country Club.