If people still doubted that the Dartmouth women's basketball team was for real, they've certainly changed their minds by now.
The Big Green emerged from their toughest road swing of the season with an impressive 59-55 defeat of two-time defending Ivy League Champion Brown and a hard-fought 69-65 loss to Yale.
The weekend's two-game split upped the Big Green's record to 9-8 overall, and kept them perched atop the Ivy League standings with a 4-1 record.
Not bad for a team that was picked to finish 5th in the preseason media poll. While this early league success has players and fans dreaming of an Ivy title, no one is getting her ring size measured just yet.
"The race is wide open," Coach Chris Wielgus said. "It's way too early to start making predictions since two-thirds of the season still remains. But we believe we can win the Ivies."
This weekend was a good start.
The Big Green used an outstanding 23-point performance from Sally Annis '97 to hand Brown its first home loss of the season on Friday night. Ilsa Webeck '94 had 10 points, Brandi Jones '95 chipped in eight, and Laurie Stucker '95 and Betsy Gilmore '94 each added seven.
"Brown had trouble stopping all of us," Wielgus said. "They couldn't contain both Laurie and Ilsa inside."
Webeck gave Brown problems on the other end of the court as well. She frustrated Brown's terrific 6-5 center Martina Jerant, last year's Ivy League Player of the Year, holding her to only 10 points.
"Ilsa did a remarkable job on Jerant," Wielgus said. "She was very mobile on defense, batting away passes. Brown had a lot of trouble making their entry passes."
Gilmore's defense also gave Brown fits. The senior point guard had a season-high nine steals, most of which came at key points down the stretch.
Annis repeated her magnificent performance on Saturday night at Yale, scoring 22 points. Unfortunately, the Big Green couldn't duplicate their team performance, losing to the Elis 69-65.
"Yale played real tenacious defense and shot the eyes out of the basket," Wielgus said.
A lousy first half by the Big Green also sealed their fate. Yale took a commanding 35-21 halftime lead and never looked back.
"We didn't play a half against Yale," Wielgus said. "We were down by 18 at one point, and it's tough to come back when you get down by that much so early. Our players fought back and made it a game in the second half, but we just ran out of time."
Stucker added 14 points, Webeck had 13, and Gilmore scored 10.
"We ran on all cylinders at Brown, but we didn't do that at Yale," Wielgus said. "The team that wins the championship is going to have to run on all of them most of the time."
