The Big Green fall to 17-5 for the season and 8-1 in the conference while watching their lock on an NCAA berth fade.
"Brown did a great job of taking us out of our rhythm and style of play," said Jeannie Cullen '06. "We fought really hard and forced overtime but just were unable to get over the jump. We learned from the game and know that we need to dictate the tempo of the game. We are a much better team when we are able to get out and run."
The 59-54 overtime loss to Brown came a day after the Big Green trampled Yale (2-21, Ivy 1-9) in a 64-51 victory on Friday night. Prior to this weekend, Dartmouth's closest winning margin had been 15 points.
Only three weeks ago, the Big Green drilled the Bears in a 73-51 win. But on Saturday, Dartmouth looked and played like a different team.
The Big Green shot 33.9 percent from the floor and was a substandard 20 percent from three-point range. Furthermore, the usually proficient free-throw shooters of Dartmouth made only half of their attempts in the game.
Both teams struggled to overcome cold shooting in the first half of the contest, but Brown pushed ahead at the half and edged the Big Green 27-21. In the second stanza, Dartmouth outscored the Bears 29-23 to carry the game into overtime. But the Big Green could find no comfort in Brown's territory in overtime as the Bears emerged as the new leader of the Ivy League by virtue of playing and winning one game more than Dartmouth.
Dartmouth, which clinched an NCAA tournament berth with its conference championship now sits in second place in the win column.
Angie Soriaga '06 surpassed Betsy Gilmore's '94 all-time assist record against Brown and now has 433 assists in her career.
Krista Perry '06 had career-high 15 rebounds and nine points while Ashley Taylor '07 scored a team-high 12 points. Cullen contributed 11 points while Fatima Kamara '07 added eight points and seven boards to the effort.
Sarah Hayes led Brown with 14 points and 10 rebounds while teammate Colleen Kelly chipped in another 14 points for the Bears.
But the Lady Green will not let one loss detract them from their ultimate goal-Ivy League championship and NCAA bid.
"It's not the end of the world," Big Green head coach Chris Wielgus said. "This is what happens in the Ivy League. We have one loss and we'll be fine. I have a lot of faith in them."
"The team will be fine," Cullen agreed. "We just need to recover from this loss and realize that the season is far from over. We have the same schedule as Brown from here on out so as long as we take care of our business we will be fine."
Earlier in the weekend, Dartmouth captured its eighth league win over the Bulldogs.
"We had to grind it out against Yale and had a much tougher game than we had expected," Cullen said. "The win against Yale was definitely not easy and we had to battle for the entire 40 minutes."
"It's always tough to play at Yale and they seem to always play well against us," added Cullen.
The Big Green was its confident self as usual and jumped to a quick 14-2 advantage in the first stanza. But Yale fought back with a 17-8 run to cut the lead down to three. Dartmouth responded with 10-2 run to end the first half in the lead, 32-21.
The Big Green pulled away from the Bulldogs in the second half, and Yale could not come within seven points of Dartmouth's lead. The women in green limited the Bulldogs to just 34.5 percent from the field for the game.
Taylor led Dartmouth with 15 points, while Cullen added 13. Sydney Scott '08 and Soraiga both had 10 points in the game.
The Big Green returns home to Leede Arena this weekend as Princeton (16-6, Ivy 7-2) and the University of Pennsylvania (4-18, Ivy 2-7) come to town.
"After two tough road trips, it will be great to get home and play in front of our home crowd," Cullen said. "We will be ready to bounce back come Friday."
Both games will tip-off at 7 p.m.
