After Dartmouth's NCAA Tournament hopes were dashed by consecutive losses to Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania, the women's basketball team looked for Ivy League redemption Tuesday night when they headed to Harvard. Despite strong efforts from Sydney Scott '08 and Kristen Craft '08, the Big Green (15-13, 9-5 Ivy) could not rally back from a first half deficit and fell to Harvard 72-54.
The Crimson (15-12, 12-1 Ivy) defeated the Big Green 71-68 in their last meeting on January 6. Dartmouth clinched second place in the Ivy League, and a postseason Women's National Invitational Tournament invitation Saturday night with a victory over Cornell, and was looking to finish the regular season on a high note.
Scott led the team in scoring with 14 points. Craft and Ashley Taylor '07 also finished in double digits with 12 and 10, respectively. Betsy Williams '10 came off the bench to have a career night, scoring eight. Williams saw a boost in her playing time Tuesday after Michelle Meyer '10 aggravated a foot injury that has bothered her all season in practice Monday.
"We were very pleased with [Williams's] effort and energy. She went to the rim and we were very pleased with that. She gave us a much needed boost off the bench," coach Chris Wielgus said.
Leading the charge for the Crimson were sophomores Katie Rollins and Niki Finelli, who finished with 16 and 14, respectively. Rollins shot an impressive 63 percent from the field. As a team, Harvard shot 53 percent, the Big Green did not fare as well, sinking only 33 percent of their shots.
Dartmouth's troubles started when Harvard came out of the gate strong to take an 11-3 lead. The teams traded baskets for most of the early frame, but Dartmouth could not put together a strong run and trailed by 12 at the half. Eighteen of Harvard's 34 points in the first half came off of Dartmouth's 14 turnovers. Dartmouth could only come away with five points from 11 Harvard miscues.
"We tried to force it in the first half," Wielgus said.
Things didn't go much better for Dartmouth after the break. The Big Green shooters warmed, scoring 32 points, but could never cut the deficit to single digits. The teams traded baskets down the stretch, but Dartmouth could never gain a scoring advantage over the Crimson.
"We dug ourselves in too big a hole by playing bad offensively and were playing catch-up the whole second half," assistant coach Chris Leazier said.
When the buzzer sounded to signal the end of the game, and the regular season, both teams knew that their years were not over. Harvard will be headed to the NCAA Tournament, receiving the Ivy League Champion's automatic bid. Dartmouth is off to the postseason WNIT, but the players will be receiving a break to study for finals.
"We're going to be studying for exams, practicing just one day, Thursday. We'll give [the players] the time they need to take their exams. It's a delight and an honor to be in the NIT but first things first," Wielgus said.
This is Dartmouth's first appearance in the postseason WNIT, which expanded its field to 40 teams this year. Games are played at the home site of the higher seeded team.
Taylor received Ivy League Player of the Week for her performance over the weekend. Taylor has received this distinction more times than any other player this week with three. Taylor is just 15 points shy of becoming the third Dartmouth player to score 500 points in a season.
