"This is a big blow for us," head coach Chris Wielgus said. "Having three losses in the first go-around in the Ivies is going to be tough to come back from. It's been done before, but it's just going to be tough to come back from."
The dramatic finish to the doubleheader was highlighted by a milestone performance from reigning Ivy League Player of the Year Brittney Smith '11, who became the 15th player in the women's basketball program history to score 1000 points.
Smith, who totaled 30 points over the weekend, picked up her sixth double-double in the last seven games and is second in league in rebounding with 10.4 boards per game.
Approaching midseason, Dartmouth (9-12, 4-3 Ivy) sits in fifth place in League standings. The Bears (6-16, 3-5 Ivy) dropped to sixth place after being swept by the Big Green and Harvard, while the Bulldogs (10-12, 5-3 Ivy) climbed to a third-place tie with Columbia University.
"We [have] to hold our heads up and just keep working," Smith said. "It's halfway done anything can happen."
Heading into the second half of the regular season, the Big Green will look to overtake a Princeton University squad that remains undefeated in conference play.
"The [Ivy League] championship trophy is still at Dartmouth, and as long as it is here, we have an obligation to play like champions," Wielgus said.
Saturday's game featured the annual Women's Basketball Coaches Association Pink Zone breast cancer awareness initiative, during which a rowdy home crowd watched as Dartmouth battled back from a 6-point first-half deficit to force overtime.
A resilient Yale squad, however, responded late in the second overtime to outlast the Big Green.
"I think we took care of the ball well, but our weak point of the game was stopping the fast breaks," Smith said. "We need to pick up faster in transition."
Dartmouth was slow to find its offensive spark in the first half, shooting just 24.1 percent from the field, while the Bulldogs capitalized with solid dribble penetration inside the post to take a 28-22 halftime lead.
Yale maintained its consistent shooting for much of the second half, as the Big Green struggled to close the gap.
Trailing by eight with about six and a half minutes remaining, the Big Green finally broke loose, as Smith and Sasha Dosenko '12 led a 10-4 charge that brought Dartmouth within two points of the Bulldogs.
Smith scored nine of the Big Green's last 13 points in regulation including her 1000th point and a game-tying jumper to cap off a late comeback that evened the score at 57.
In overtime, Dartmouth nursed a narrow two-point lead with 12 seconds on the clock before Yale freshman Megan Vasquez tied up the score at 61 with five seconds left to force a second overtime.
Two quick baskets from Faziah Steen-Ngalamulume '13 and Dosenko gave the Big Green a two-point edge before Yale rallied with a 4-0 run and limited Dartmouth to zero field goals in the last two minutes to walk away with the 70-66 win.
"We got stops, and we were hustling," Smith said. "We just didn't get the ball in the basket."
On Friday, Dartmouth looked to regain its momentum against Brown after a tough loss to the Bears earlier in the month.
After an evenly contested first half, the Big Green squandered a second-half lead, but a last-minute play by Betsy Williams '10 helped fight off a seven-point rally from the visitors.
In the first period, Dartmouth was again slow to heat up, allowing a 10-0 Bears run before responding with an 8-2 run to cut the Brown advantage to two. Both teams kept pace with each other until halftime with the score deadlocked at 26-26.
A series of threes from Margaret Smith '10, Meghan McFee '11 and Dosenko pushed the Big Green lead to five.
Riding a seven-point advantage at 52-45, Dartmouth then allowed an 8-0 Bears run.
Trailing by one at 62-61 with Brown in possession of the ball, Williams quickly turned a fast-break layup off a defensive stop to help Dartmouth retake the lead. Smith secured the Big Green's win with a steal and two clutch free throws.
Dosenko and Williams each posted 17 points against the Bears, while Smith was impressive again with 11 points and 14 rebounds.
With the crown still within its grasp, the women's squad takes to the road with rematches against Columbia on Friday and against Cornell University on Saturday. Both games are slated for 7 p.m. tipoffs.
