Even though Dartmouth (10-3, 1-0 Ivy) was able to overcome the efforts of a struggling Colgate team and continue its winning streak with a 67-56 victory on Tuesday evening in Hamilton, N.Y., the ladies in green know that they cannot always expect to be so lucky.
"We had another slow start in the game. Even though we won, we never really played up to our full potential. In that way it was a disappointing performance for us," Angie Soriaga '06 said. "We did step up during points that matter. There were some highlights to the game, though not much."
With the victory, Dartmouth improved to 10-3 on the season while the Raiders fell to 3-13 overall. The win also gave the Big Green a 9-0 edge in the all-time series record.
In a back-and-forth first half, the Raiders were able to jump out to an early 15-6 lead before the Big Green answered with a 17-0 run. Then Colgate scored six unanswered points followed by seven more from Dartmouth. The Raiders cut the lead down to two again before the Big Green again extended the deficit to nine. At the half, Dartmouth led 39-30.
Throughout the game, the two squads played in an oscillating manner until the Big Green began to distant itself from Colgate early in the second half, obtaining a 46-35 lead. However, the Raiders would not surrender and slowly caught up from behind. At the 11:03 mark, Colgate trailed by only four points.
Still, Dartmouth refused to relinquish the lead and was able to hold off the Raiders until the clock ran out.
"We really need to work on playing the entire game with a lot of energy and hustle, not just during times when we need it," Soriaga said. "We also have to work on our zone offense a bit, as we went through scoring droughts in the game [when we were] unable to beat Colgate's zone [defense]."
Ashley Taylor '07 led five Dartmouth players in double figures with 15 points. Sydney Scott '08 chipped in 14 points and grabbed nine boards while Soriaga contributed 11 points, five rebounds and three assists. Fatima Kamara '07 and Krista Perry '06 added 10 points each to the win.
Megan Ballard and Gretchen Polinski were the top scorers for the Raiders, notching 14 points apiece. The Raiders shot 36.4 percent from the field overall and made just one quarter of their attempts from behind the arc.
"I feel that our team has stepped up to the challenge in many games by coming back even when we were down by a lot of points," Kamara said. "But we need to be able to play more consistently through an entire game so that we don't have to fight our way back."
Despite some inconsistent play, Dartmouth is beginning to draw national attention.
Prior to the Colgate game, Charlie Creme, an analyst for ESPN.com, predicted the NCAA Tournament pairings. He picked Dartmouth as a No. 15 seed and pitched the Big Green against would-be No. 2-seed University of Connecticut in the first round of the tournament.
Dartmouth is also slowly moving up the RPI rankings and was the only Ivy League school to crack the top 100.
The team next takes on No. 25 North Caroline State on Saturday in Reynolds Coliseum. The game marks the first ever meeting between the Big Green and the Wolfpack.
"I am excited about the game at N.C. State," Soriaga said. "They are ranked in the country and the game will give us a good idea as to how we compare to the top teams in the nation. They are a very solid team with depth so it will be a great challenge for us and a nice lead-in to our conference season."
N.C. State will be the last non-conference team that Dartmouth plays in the regular season. The Big Green resumes full-time Ivy play next week when it faces the Brown Bears in its second conference game this season.
"We are ready for Ivies to start," Perry said. "We played Harvard and played one of our best games this season. I think the team is ready to start conference games and defend our championship title."
