Saturday morning, three buses full of Hanover residents traveled first through snow and then, as the temperature rose, rain, to cheer on the Dartmouth women's basketball team in its playoff for the Ivy League's NCAA bid against Princeton at Yale's John J. Lee Amphitheater.
As if reenacting the fans' journey on the court, the Green women began the game cold as ice and then warmed up, eventually raining jump shots on the Tigers.
Dartmouth weathered a 24-14 Princeton run to open the game, but unclouded the tie atop the Ivies with a 66-49 win and earned the League's automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament.
The 14th-seeded Big Green will face Rutgers in the first round of the Midwest region on Friday night. The Big East's Scarlet Knights enter the contest as one of the top defensive teams in the nation with a 26-5 record overall.
"This team has an enormous flare for the dramatic," Dartmouth Head Coach Chris Wielgus said. "I had a lot of faith that we could come back."
A tough start
Since Princeton (16-11, 11-4) lost to Penn last Wednesday, setting up the playoff between the Ivy co-champs, Dartmouth (19-8, 12-3) has been riding high. As a result, the Green began the game with a great deal of emotion, and it hurt them.
Dartmouth turned the ball over several times in the early minutes and did not have the patience to wait for open shots.
After Princeton ran off five points, Courtney Banghart '00 got the Green on the board with a three-pointer.
Princeton scored five more points before Nicci Rinaldi '99 hit two free throws, Banghart hit another trey and Katie O'Connor '99 put in a layup to give Princeton an 11-10 edge just six minutes into the contest.
Over the next seven minutes, Dartmouth ran into real troubles. While Princeton's half-court trapping defense failed to create many turnovers, the Green could not hit its shots or grab any offensive rebounds.
Princeton, on the other hand, shot well and pulled down many of its nine first half offensive boards in that short span.
"Every second shot's a good one," said Wielgus, explaining why her team was outscored 13-4 over the stretch in the middle of the first half.
In the opening period, Princeton outrebounded Dartmouth 24-12 and held the Green to 36 percent shooting from the field.
The comeback trail
As the half progressed, Dartmouth started to make shots, and Princeton couldn't hit any. Energized by a timeout talk by Wielgus, Dartmouth scored the final 10 points of the half, and went into the locker room with the game knotted at 24.
Three-pointers by Sherryta Freeman '01 and Banghart keyed the comeback during which Princeton turned the ball over four times.
"We did a great job playing man-to-man defense," Rinaldi said.
The Green traded four points for three and then three for one to open a slim lead in the second stanza. Then Rinaldi had a three-point play and two possessions later she fed Erin Rewalt '99 for a short jumper to put the Green up five.
Sherryta Freeman '00 sandwiched five points around four from Gyvonne Pinkston '99 to increase the lead to seven.
Strangely, the Green made all of its runs without Courtney Banghart, who left the game at 16:05 and did not return. However, Freeman and Pinkston picked up the slack on both ends of the court.
"She's a remarkably gifted athlete," Wielgus said of Freeman.
The sophomore guard finished with a game-high 15 points. The reserve forward Pinkston poured in all 12 of her points in the second half and added seven rebounds.
"In the post, they had more depth than we did," said Princeton Head Coach Liz Feeley. "They had some role players who stepped it up big."
Putting the game away
As the players Wielgus brought off the bench continued to score in bunches, Princeton began to fade. After Freeman and Pinkston outscored Princeton 10-3 from 6:59 to 3:27, Dartmouth led 56-45.
Rinaldi hit two more free throws, and Princeton could manage only a solitary layup until less than two minutes remained, when the Tigers began fouling intentionally.
On Dartmouth's first possession after Feeley had instructed her players to foul, the Tigers' Jessica Munson flagrantly fouled Rinaldi.
Rinaldi sunk one free throw and returned to the line seconds later after the Green grabbed her miss of the second shot.
The Green's accuracy from the charity stripe largely failed them in the closing minutes, but Princeton could not capitalize, scoring only two more points in the game after fouling Rinaldi.
Meanwhile, Dartmouth extended its lead to the game's 66-49 conclusion.
"[Dartmouth] definitely stepped up the pressure," said Princeton's Kate Thirolf, who cooled down in the second half after burning the Green for 11 points and six rebounds in the opening stanza.
Looking forward and back
After the game, several Tigers commented on the efforts of both teams.
"This team did everything they could to win," senior center Lee Ann Drohan said of her Tigers. "I'm not disappointed at all."
"We stopped them but didn't score ourselves," Feeley said. "Dartmouth played some great pressure defense. That took us out of our rhythm."
The Green cut down one of the nets -- each player and coach got a piece of it as a souvenir to bring back to Hanover -- and thanked the fans who had braved the elements to watch them play in New Haven.
At the press conference following the game, Rewalt wore the net as a necklace.
"Everyone told us that beating a team three times in a season is almost unheard of," she said, referring to Dartmouth's two prior defeats of Princeton this season as well.
But Dartmouth managed this unlikely trifecta with several unlikely stars and will enter the NCAA Tournament regarded as unlikely to contend with top-ranked teams from major conferences.
Much like the weather, however, the NCAAs are hard to forecast accurately.
